The story of a little guillie chick, sentiment or conservation...?

My journey into conservation has not been traditional, I have quickly learnt to ‘toughen up’ to the ups and downs of wildlife survival. I love animals and wildlife and am passionate about the job I do, the core of which is visitor engagement and promoting wildlife conservation to the visitors to Skomer. Conservationists may sometimes be accused of lacking sentiment when it comes to the harsh reality of nature. There is inevitable loss and suffering in the wild community and a conservationist’s perspective is governed by species and population concerns. Conservationists can’t worry about the individuals; some puffins lose fish to gulls, some Manx shearwaters get predated, some guillemot chicks don’t survive their ‘jump’. The overriding conservation question concerns how well these species are doing at population level

Today I chatted to a visitor as she was leaving the island having had a wonderful day and a camera full of puffin photos. We got to talking about the guillemots that were close to the boat departure area. In a five minute conversation, this lady learnt that guillemot chicks at only 3 weeks old jump from the safety of their nest site and parent protection for a life out on the ocean. By the end of the breeding season the female is exhausted and the male takes over the final stages of chick rearing. He swims with the chick out to sea away from predatory gulls and they will remain together for the next five to seven weeks. They primarily do this because being out in feeding areas where the parent doesn’t have to fly back and forth to the colony means the chick will be fed twice as much as if it had remained in the colony. It will grow fast enabling higher survival chances and eventual recruitment in to the breeding population itself and subsequent survival of the species.

Being unable to fly, these little guillemot chicks must swim to productive feeding areas and it is essential that food sources relatively close to breeding colonies remains unaffected by climate change, overfishing or pollution. Greater awareness of the serious issues our wildlife is facing is key to the movement of governments to make those difficult but necessary decisions to act now against climate change.

Therefore, this lady’s last wildlife sighting on Skomer was of a little guillemot chick close to the boat landing step. I wonder what she will take from her visit today?

So let me tell you about that little guillemot chick, which against all my natural instinct will remain nameless. 

Little guillemot chick just a few days old

It hatched on the 4th June when just brief glimpses were had of a little grey downy chick sitting tight under the brooding parent. This pair of guillemots (presumably the same pair) had failed to rear a chick to fledging age in 2018 so this year  was willing them on to succeed. Each day I checked on the chick's progress, growing steadily but sill spending most of the time being brooded and protected by the parent. At two weeks old it would regularly spend time sitting next to the parent learning the art of preening. At any sign of danger it would quickly disappear back under the adult disappearing from view. Guillemot chicks have disproportionately large feet for their body size. They will need these for all the swimming to come, but for now it makes them look totally adorable to our human eyes.

7 days old and just look at those feet!

Learning to preen at 14 days old

22 days old and the last day time view I had of the little chick

At 16 days old guillemot productivity monitoring dictates that a chick has reached a fledging age and so from this time on I spent every evening watching for the time it would 'jump'. Each night the colony was remarkably quiet with no sign of any chicks leaving. Then on the sixth night as soon as I got to the site I could sense a change from all previous nights. The little colony was alive with noise, chicks and adults calling to each other with lots of movement on the ledges. Gulls responsive to this were inevitably hanging around waiting for the opportunity of an easy meal. I saw several chicks splash into the water and just about seeing them swim straight out to sea with their fathers. The light was fading and still my little chick was still sitting tight against the female.

Then for the first time the mother jumped away from the chick to a ledge above almost appearing to cajole the little one to go. The chick at first tried to jump up towards her but soon responded to the calls of the male in the water below, calling back and flapping its little wings. Then suddenly the first jump but just to a ledge below but straight into a row of adult guillemots that began viciously pecking at the intruder. Mum straight away jumped down to protect it and created some space for the little chick to regain composure. A few seconds later the chick moved to the edge and in an instant was gone, little wings flapping and feet outstretched helping the parachute style jump down to the water...

Video of the night time sound of guillemot males calling to their chicks

I can’t actually tell you if this chick made it. By now it was almost fully dark and very difficult to make out any birds in the water. But it had survived to 22 days old, had jumped under the cover of near darkness and therefore has given itself every chance of surviving.

So today was a good day, I watched 'my' guillemot chick fledge and helped a visitor going away from her day on Skomer knowing more about guillemots that before she came… I’d like to think its ok for this conservationist to be sentimental…


Subsequent to the chick's fledging I posted a video on facebook of the chick around 14 days old with an adult that was ringed www.facebook.com/SkomerIsland/ I now know this adult was the father as was not often seen with the chick during it's time on the ledge. If anyone has any photos of the guillemots in this little colony showing a ringed adult we would love to hear from you. Contact Skomer visitor officer: skomer.vo@welshwildlife.org



Sarah Parmor (Skomer Visitor Officer)