A Plethora of Prions

We’re celebrating here on Gough; a very unexpected success story has been unfolding! 

Every few days we’ve been out to visit the aptly named Prion Cave, home to a colony of MacGillivray’s Prion. We think anyway… until recently it was assumed that these birds were Broad-Billed Prions. A few years ago however, it was realised that the birds in the Cave have narrower bills, much more like the MacGillivray’s. This was something of a surprise; MacGillivray’s only breed on two islands in the Indian Ocean. It still isn’t known for sure, Prion’s all look very similar so it’s really difficult to tell them apart.

Whatever they are, these birds are amazing. They’re bright blue and are known as ‘whale birds’ because their mouths are similar to the baleen sheets found in the mouths of filter feeding whales. To find food, they sieve seawater through these sheets to pick out plankton and other tiny organisms. Pretty smart.

Unfortunately, these lovely birds have been hard hit by Goughs killer mice. Not a single chick has fledged over the last two summers. Their fortunes have miraculously and mysteriously changed this year though; we have ringed and said goodbye to 43 fledglings, and there are three youngsters still to pluck up the courage to head out into the big wide world. We really don’t know why their fates have suddenly changes, we see mice running around inside the cave every time we visit but they seem to have lost the taste for Prion…

An adult Prion preening it's chick (David Kinchin-Smith)

Prion chicks need their fluff to stay warm in their dank cave (Em Witcutt)

A beautiful fledgling emerges from it's downy coat (David Kinchin-Smith)

Almost ready... (David Kinchin-Smith)

Ready to head out into the world (Em Witcutt)

Em