This is a video clip taken by one of my students, showing me and my long-time field buddy and friend doing something we love; seabird field work on a rocky island in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean.
We catch the murres as part of a long-term, on-going research program to investigate factors that influence their reproductive success. After capture, the birds are banded, they are weighed and measured, and then we take a blood sample from them for DNA and hormonal analyses. They're set free after that, and it usually takes only a few minutes before they show up at their nest site on the rocky ledges. I'm sure its not all that much fun for the individual birds while they're being handled, but no one seems worse-off because of it. We've been catching murres for over 10 years now, and have long-term data on murres that we've come to know well over the years- lucky for us, murres use the same nest site every year.
There is no sound, because we wanted a clip to show in presentations and talk over. If you'd like to hear Common Murres, and what it sounds like to work in a seabird colony, click HERE. You'll be able to download a podcast from Naturesound.org with recordings of murres from Tatoosh Island, off the coast of Washington state, USA.
