Super seals and sea life!!

September 10, 2024

The last few weeks on Ramsey have felt more autumnal by the day and a stark reminder that we don't have long left of this season!

Siani the sheepdog enjoying the sunset over Abermawr on the 29th of August © Alys Perry.

The septic tank and pipework around the Farmhouse have now been completed thanks to Derek & Jack who dug in the pipes with a mini digger last week. Thank you so much both for all your hard work!

We've had more lovely volunteers over the past 2 weeks including, Steve, Joe, Ali, Alisha, and Matt. Who have all chipped in to help with visitors, maintenance work, and undertaking biological surveys. Thank you all for your hard work and enthusiasm over the past few weeks!

Our fantastic volunteer Steve fixing the gate and fence at Carn Ysgbor on the 21st of August © Alys Perry.

We also said goodbye to Duran the entomologist who has spent 6 weeks of her summer surveying for dung beetles and various other insects on the island. Thank you so much for all your hard work and dedication Duran, we have loved having you on the island and we can't wait to see you again next year!!

Nia, Duran, Siani, Griff and I doing a chough roost count on the 29th of August © Alys Perry.

In other news, we had a very surprising discovery on the island! There have always been rumuors about the Ramsey goldfish in one of the ponds behind the farm buildings but neither of us had ever seen them to confirm. Until..... Nia spotted them swimming around in the pond behind the Haggard! Most of the goldfish are no longer orange and have instead converted back to brown in order to blend in better with their environment.

One of the Ramsey goldfish on the 24th of August © Alys Perry.

A very excited Nia with a bowl of tiny goldfish (all were released back to the pond safely) © Alys Perry.

Weekly wildlife round-up

We are getting close to the peak of the breeding season for the Atlantic Grey seals on the island and have 139 seal pups on our 10 study beaches as of the 9th of September. Abermawr has the most with 72 seal pups at present. New pups are being born by the day on the harbour beach and Aberfelin. Nia managed to take some lovely shots of one of the seal pups on Aberfelin the other day.

One of the Aberfelin seal pups on the 30th of August © Nia Stephens.

There are still plenty of Chough on the island with a count of 47 going into roost on 8th September.

Four more of our Manx Shearwater chicks fledged from our nest boxes on the 4th so we are excited to see how many more have already started their migration to Argentina this week.

It's been a busy couple of days in terms of migrants with the arrival of 30+ Spotted Flycatchers, 60+ Willow Warblers, several Pied Flycatchers, and 30+ Blackcaps arriving on the island on the 7th. Smaller numbers of Chiffchaff and Goldcrest have also been recorded around the Bungalow and Farmhouse. Large flocks of 25+ Pied Wagtails were also recorded on the 7th in the Northern Fields.

It's been a good week for waders including sightings of Whimbrel, Curlew, Golden Plover, Dunlin, Grey Plover, and Common Sandpipers.

We have also had some very exciting marine news!! Nia and I managed to rediscover a rare sponge species in one of the caves off the gutter. It is called Thymosia guernei and is identified by its appearance of looking like cold mashed potato! It was first recorded on Ramsey in the 1970s but has not been recorded since. It is a feature of our SSSI and is only found on offshore islands around the British Isles so we were delighted to be able to confirm that it's still present here.