RSPB Ramsey & Grassholm Islands Blog

This week marked the start of the seabird counting season with our gull counts and fulmar productivity surveys getting underway. The island is now covered in foxgloves in full bloom which is definitely brightening up the place. Foxgloves over the North East Coast © Alys Perry. We had a visit from members of NRW on the 20th of May to discuss the monitoring of the heathland on Ramsey and some of the rare water plants including Floating Water Plantain. Floating Water Plantain in one of the Central ponds on the 20th © Nia Stephens. Two of the NRW team identifying some of the water plants using a hand lens on the 20th © Nia Stephens. We had two new volunteers to Ramsey this week Kath & Karl who spent their time painting benches, fixing gates, patching one of the farm buildings roof, assisting with visitors and helping on gull boat counts. Thank you for all your hard work and help. We've spent the past week counting the nesting gulls on Ramsey, the Bishops & Clarks and Grassholm....

The sun has started to shine and the wildflowers have finally decided to burst into life, with Bluebells, Fox gloves and Thrift being the stars of the show. Time has flown the past few weeks, with plenty of fieldwork, maintenance and welcoming visitors to the island taking up the majority of our time.  Looking South across the East Coast on the 15th ©   Alys Perry.  Like many across Pembrokeshire we were treated to some fantastic Northern Lights on the 10th with beautiful views both from the Farmhouse and the Bungalow.  Northern Lights across Ramsey Sound ©   Chris Jones.  Northern Lights over St David's Head ©   Elis Ward .  Nia, Chris and I spent a big chunk of the beginning of the season clearing out the farm buildings of scrap metal and luckily on the 10th Derek, Steve & Tom helped us remove the majority of it off the island. This involved craning it down in ton bags onto Steve's barge and transporting it to a skip at Porthclais. It a...

 It has been a nice week in terms of weather with much calmer seas and even the sun coming out for prolonged periods of time. All the birds, flowers and ourselves have been making the most of the warmer weather. Looking North across the East Coast of Ramsey on the 6th May © Alys Perry. The farmhouse in glorious sunshine on the 8th May © Alys Perry.   This week saw the arrival of our first volunteers of the season Mick and Elis. Mick is a returning volunteer and is back for another week this season and Elis is undertaking a 2 week placement with us from Liverpool University where he is studying to become a vet.  Mick and Elis have kept themselves busy with painting the new gates, conducting reptile tile and chough feeding transects, helping to check the Manx Shearwater productivity boxes, rebuilding the cairns along the paths, clearing the paths of encroaching heather and bracken and welcoming visitors to the island.   Elis checking one of the reptile tiles ...