Gulls Galore

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. This has entailed land based counts and boat based counts in order to cover the different gull colonies. Thank you very much to Ian and Cooper from Thousand Islands for taking us out to the Bishops & Clarks on the 24th we all had a great time. I will include this years seabird numbers in one of the blogs over the next couple of weeks once all the survey work is completed. 

Counting some of the nesting Herring Gulls on the South side of Colonmenodd © Nia Stephens.

Nia and I on our way back from counting the gulls on the Bishops & Clarks © Nia Stephens.

Duran the entomologist is now back with us for two weeks carrying out more invertebrate surveys across the island. This has involved deploying pitfall traps in order to catch and identify different species of dung beetle (a favourite snack of the Chough). We can't wait to hear what you find Duran!

Duran digging in a pitfall trap at Abermawr on the 27th © Vicky Pearson.

Weekly Wildlife Round-up 

We now have 16 Manx Shearwater incubating eggs in our productivity plot with hopefully more to come. 

Nia checking one of the Manx Shearwater nest boxes in the study plot on the 22nd © Alys Perry.

9 pairs of our Chough are now feeding chicks, so we should be seeing Chough fledglings over the next couple of weeks. 

One of the breeding pair on the North Coast soaking up the sun on the 29th © Alys Perry.

New bird records for the week include Barnacle Goose, Redpoll, and Golden Plover. The Cuckoo has also continued to call on the Northern End for the past week. 

Plenty of passerines are now busily feeding young in the nest which has meant our breeding bird surveys have been exceptional busy.

A Dunnock with a large caterpillar on the 27th © Alys Perry.

Curlew and Whimbrel are daily sightings on the island with large flocks feeding and roosting in the Northern Fields. 

A Whimbrel on the North on the 25th © Alys Perry.

Our female Red Deer have started to separate and disappear from the main herd which is a sure sign that their calf's are on the way. We had a doe calling to its young behind the bungalow on the 26th, presumably the new calf was hidden somewhere in the bracken. 

A Stag hiding amongst the foxgloves on the 28th © Alys Perry.

Plenty of migrants are still turning up with a large influx of 30+ Spotted Flycatchers on the island on the 28th. 

A Spotted Flycatcher perching on a foxglove on the 28th © Alys Perry.

Until Next Week.

Alys Perry

Assistant Warden