Burhou - Flora and Fauna

Flora and Fauna

The island's animals are mainly of the avian variety, although rabbits are long established here. The island has many puffins and some storm petrels. Although the latter have declined, they used to nest in the cottage's storm loft. Roderick Dobson in Birds of the Channel Islands said that puffins had been plentiful for over a century. The Birds of Guernsey (1878) by Cecil Smith states likewise. The puffins have had to compete with gulls, and in 1949, hundreds died from red mite infestation. The rabbit holes on the island make good nesting for them.

Amongst the plants noted here are sea spurry, forget-me-nots, scarlet pimpernel, field bugloss, bracken and nettles. E.D. Marquand noted a mere 18 species of plant here in 1909, but by the late twentieth century Frances Le Sueur and David McClintock found 45, which they wrote up in the Transactions of La Société Guernesiaise

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