Guillemot on Beach

[dbozkurt]

Hi Folks

Took some great pictures of a Guillemot sunning itself on the beach...that is until I got close and realised it had oil on its lower body and it was cleaning himself. Don't know where the oil came from up here in the Outer Hebrides. There is a couple of pictures here in this thread, I will not post them to the Gallery as I don't feel thats appropiate, the bird didn't seem distressed. There was a lady that followed me down the beach and picked it up and said she would take to the vet......did she do right! She told me there was noone to contact on the Outer Hebrides that would take seabirds in that are covered in oil etc. Does anyone know of any organisation up here I can contact or a UK wide one that can point me in the right direction.

The bird nipped her a few times and tried to take my finger off (I stupidly put it in the way) but seemed quite tame and intelligent as if he knew she was going to help. Again don't know if she did right but I felt totally out of my depth.






Debs

[James_Owen]

Sounds like an appropriate intervention to me, after all it was doubtless a human influence that put the bird in distress. Guillemots never beach themselves, so this bird must have been quite desperate.

Many ships illegally clean their tanks at sea, spewing out oil in the process. I'd imagine that's what happened here.

[Hobjob]

Originally Posted by James_Owen

Sounds like an appropriate intervention to me, after all it was doubtless a human influence that put the bird in distress. Guillemots never beach themselves, so this bird must have been quite desperate.

Many ships illegally clean their tanks at sea, spewing out oil in the process. I'd imagine that's what happened here.

I agree did right.

I can't speak for guillemots, but in South Africa my daughter did
a lot of penguin cleaning (several hundred) after the the big spill
some five years ago - If their feathers are coated then so are
their insides and a routine tubing of the stomach was done.

They also bite!!!! and they smell of penguin and oil.

My daughter never wants to see another penguin that close!!

And penguin colonies also stink.

[Jennywrenny]

Not really to do with oil but we rescued a fulmar from the beach at Reighton Sands near Filey.

We had gone for a walk on the beach and noticed a gull just sitting on the sand. We didn't go near it but continued on our walk without thinking much about it. We went quite a way along the beach and came back the same way some time later and it was still sitting there. We suspected something was wrong and slowly approached it. We actually managed to get right up to it and it didn't budge - we knew something was wrong.

I managed to wrap my jumper around it and we took it back to our caravan and phoned the RSPB. It was actually someone from the RSPCA that came to collect the bird.

While we were waiting for someone to come and collect it we identified it from our Pocket Guide as being a fulmar which the RSPCA worker confirmed!

It had actually damaged it's wing and that is why it didn't move. I'm really glad that we rescued it and don't like to think what might have happened to it had we just left it there.

It was also a very good patient for us

Our good deed for the day

Jenny

[Adam Cheeseman]

I once found an oiled gilly on the beach at Climping. I knew of the bird hospital at Birdham near Pagham so I put the bird in my rucksack, cycled back to Littlehampton to catch the train to Chichester (got a few puzzled looks from passengers looking at the Guillemot that was resting quite happily on my lap on the train journey). From Chichester it was a six mile bike ride, half of which I had to walk because I got a puncture. Eventually got to the hospital where it was taken in. Shame it was left down to me to take it in, as there were half-a-dozen others there with their cars who could have got it there much quicker. Didn't want to get their upholstery dirty!

Cheers,

Adam