Birds - Ushagyn

Bird watchers have the chance to see a wide variety of resident or migrant species, including the acrobatic red-legged Chough of which the Calf has one of the most important breeding populations in Britain. It is also possible to see Manx Shearwaters, a bird first named scientifically from a specimen found here in 1676.

Breeding birds on the steep cliffs that surround the Calf of Man include Kittiwake and other gulls, Puffin, Common Guillemot, Black Guillemot, Razorbill, Fulmar, Shag and Storm Petrels.

• Herring Gull - Foillan
• Lesser Black-backed Gull - Foillan-Saggyrt
• Greater Black-backed Gull - Juan Mooar
• Black Guillemot - Stronnag Ghoo
• Chough - Caaig
• Common Guillemot - Stronnag
• Fulmar - Pibbin Vane
• Kittiwake - Pirragh
• Manx Shearwater - Scraayl
• Oystercatcher - Bridjeen
• Puffin - Pibbin Farkee
• Razorbill - Kione Breck
• Raven - Feeagh
• Shag - Feeagh Marrey
• Storm Petrel - Kirree Varrey

Choughs

The species became extinct in England and survives only in isolated pockets on the Welsh coast and Scottish islands. Only in the Isle of Man and the south west coast of Ireland does its population seem to be secure, maintaining healthy sized non-breeding flocks of birds which support young birds learning how to survive their first few seasons.

Choughs probe the ground to feed on crane-fly larvae (leatherjackets), moth caterpillars, earwigs, worms, beetles and beetle larvae, ants’ eggs and woodlice. Short, dampish turf is essential for efficient feeding, and needs to be kept grazed by livestock such as sheep, both to maintain easy access for the birds and to supply dung to encourage an abundance of soil invertebrates. The Loaghtan sheep, maintained on the Calf by Manx National Heritage staff from Cregneash, help this management regime, but rabbits are also vitally important. Not only do they graze the turf, but they are food for the larger gulls, Hen Harriers and Ravens.

Manx Shearwaters

The first known literary reference to Manx Shearwaters at the Sound is probably in the Norse Njal’s Saga. The noise and attacks of birds (called ‘Ravens’ but more likely to be Manx Shearwaters) were interpreted as bad omens by the Viking chiefs Brodir and Ospak as their ships lay moored at the Sound before sailing to their defeat at the battle of Clontarf (1014) in Ireland.

In 1676, the name Manx Shearwater was given to Puffinus puffinus by Francis Willoughby. The bird’s flight across the top of the water inspired its name. The birds nest in holes and burrows. Willoughby wrote in 1678 that:

"They feed their young wonderous fat. When they come to their full growth, they who are entrusted by the Lord of the island, draw them out of their coney holes; and that they may readily know, and keep an account of the number they take, they cut off one foot and reserve it, which gave occasion to the fable that the Puffins are single footed".

The annual cull took place each year during late summer. The birds were eaten both fresh and pickled. The oil from their bodies was used for preventing armour from rusting and was used as a source of lighting fuel before there was paraffin or electricity.

About two hundred years ago, the Calf was home to probably the largest colony of Manx Shearwaters in the world. The heavy cull of these birds and problems with "longtails" (rats) resulted in their near extinction. Small numbers of Manx Shearwaters are now returning to the Calf to breed.

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