Week Ending 30th June 2013

So this week saw me become another year older (I know that technically I only aged a week between Monday and Sunday but you get the picture) as Tuesday was my 27^th Birthday!

The past 2 years have absolutely flown by, but when I take the time to look back it really hits home how many amazing things we've been able to achieve in that time. It really reinforces how lucky we really are.

So on the Tuesday Mum and Dad were able to board the Westwood Ho boat from Weston-Super-Mare and come and visit us on our little island home for the day. It’s always great to gauge people’s reactions when they come to the island, and I think that they both were able to see the same things that Vicky and I see in it. Certainly the rations of cake and sweets that came over with them from the mainland have been well appreciated by all of the team! While they were here we were all able to enjoy a drink in the pub and a picnic on the beach, as the weather for once was sunny with very little wind... certainly not something we see very often in these parts!

Mum and Dad made it over to see our little island home

The little ducklings that I mentioned last week are now unfortunately no more, and in fact I think the last one went missing not many hours after I published last week’s blog. It is very unfortunate that they share a nesting field with the biggest predators on the island!

The gull chicks on the other hand are going from strength to strength, and many are now starting to show their juvenile feathers. It is hard to believe that they are the same little bundles of fluff that they were just a few weeks ago. A number of them have even been spotted trying to fly, but at the moment they just end up flat on their backs whenever they try. It won’t be long though I’m sure before we see them taking to the skies. Next weekend we will be having a gull ringing team over to the island to ring 100 of the lucky little things, so that we are able to keep tabs on them throughout their life and see where they end up.

A gull chick comes face to face with an Oyster Catcher. The chick is no longer a ball of fluff and is sporting his first feathers.

At the moment the oldest ringed gull that we have sighted on the island this year has been 16 years old which certainly isn't bad going! Many of the birds that are ringed here go on to be spotted down in Western Europe as they migrate away from the UK, and are often spotted in the likes of Spain and Portugal. In terms of distance, the furthest that a Flat Holm ringed gull has been spotted away from the island has been nearly 3250km away in the Western Sahara!

The remainder of the week has mainly been spent trying to get certain types of vegetation under control on the managed side of the island. Nettles and thistles have mainly been the enemy as we race against time to stop them going to seed and creating more work for the future. Strimming and hand slashing has largely been the workload therefore and we have not had the time to carry on with the dry stone walling. 

Vicky getting some strimming done near the fog horn station

Being honest I haven't really looked at the news this week and so I don't have an amusing article to finish on, but I'll aim to resume normal service next week. See you then!

Double Edition! Weeks Ending 16th June & 23rd June 2013

Hi Everybody!

First of all apologies to all of those who took the time to look at the blog last Sunday to find no updates, this was due to being stranded in Cardiff with boats to the island being cancelled, and when we finally did get back to the island we were simply too busy for me to write!

So going back to 2 weeks ago. We were finally able to escape the island for a few days to get back home and see friends and family. With the bad weather due to roll in Wednesday we were able to hastily arrange a boat to get us off the island late Tuesday night. After a few service station pit stops and a strong coffee we arrived back in Kent at 3.15am.

The day after we arrived home we were due to sit our ECDL computer test for databases (we were due to sit them back in May but as you know the weather prevented us from leaving the island), and fortunately we were able to pass them despite the hectic 48 hours that had preceded them!

It was great to spend some time catching up with people at home, although we wished we had longer to allow us to see all of the people we would have liked to.

By Sunday afternoon we were already on our way back to Cardiff, however just as we were pulling off the M4 and into the city we got a phone call to say the boat was cancelled and that we would need to stay an extra night in Cardiff. Whenever we are in Cardiff overnight the council put us up in a backpacker hostel just across from the Millennium Stadium, and to be honest it's a very good hostel with an amazing free breakfast in the morning!

In the end it was Tuesday afternoon before we were able to get back onto the island, but with a visitor trip scheduled for the day after we had to launch straight into work to "open" the island in time for their visit.

As well as the visitor trip Wednesday brought 2 wildlife surveys with it in the form of Shelducks and Moths. Only 18 Shelducks were sighted on the island (a drop of 11 from the last count), and only 2 moths remained in the trap from the night before for us to ID.

Thursday saw us begin a dry stone walling project, with the aim of repairing one of the walls on the island that has mostly collapsed. Trying to create a wall out of oddly shaped rocks is a lot more difficult than using bricks and mortar, but the final results should be a lot more rewarding. It's also a great physical workout! In the area where we are building we have set up some "batters" which have string running between them to act as a guideline for where the wall should run. Now it's simply (or not so simply) a case of finding the right rocks to build the 3D jigsaw puzzle that will be our wall.

Starting to rebuild the first section of the wall

Fridays main activity was completing a "Rocky Shore Survey" where we take a look at the marine life living on the rocks while the tide is out. We identify and count the wildlife in a square metre of the shoreline before moving up the rocks to an area 60cm higher than the last count and repeating the process.

Stuart and Harriet check the books to find out what Matt has in his hands

We were able to identify 4 different types of seaweed, several periwinkles, limpets, anemones and barnacles. We also found a number of small creatures that seem to be related to shrimps as well as this little guy below:

A Seaslater. Think woodlouse but a lot larger!

By the time we had completed some more of the dry stone walling our working week was complete as both of the weekend's visitor trips were cancelled. Just as we were packing up our tools however we noticed that we had a few new additions to our island family. One of our Indian Runner Ducks that has been carefully minding a nest in the nettles for the last few weeks was surrounded by 9 little ducklings!

Baby ducklings poking out from under the wings

Unfortunately how long they will last is anybody's guess as the middle of a gull colony is not the best place to have your ducklings; already 4 have disappeared presumably down the necks of the gulls :(

This week's news story of the week is all about one animal that wouldn't have so much of a problem with our gulls though...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/16/guinea-pig-armor_n_3449820.html

See you next week!

Week Ending 9th June 2013

The majority of the last week for us has been taken up by the back breaking task of shearing the sheep. 

Monday brought the only boat visit of the week for a 3 hour trip from Cardiff. Fortunately the weather played ball on this occasion and I finished my guided tour a lot dryer than my previous one! Monday is also the day that we do the majority of our weekly checks and cleans, so it was a pretty full on day in the end.

Tuesday through to Thursday was sheep shearing time. Professional sheep shearers are able to rattle of a sheep a minute, or 90 seconds at worst. For us novices though the process takes a little longer and is in the region of about 90 minutes per sheep (we'll use the excuse that we don't have as good equipment as the professionals, with most of the group using hand shears).

Before the haircut...

Working in pairs you would first have to tip the sheep into a sitting position (they can't lay on their backs otherwise they wouldn't be able to breathe properly) in order to work on the belly area and around the leg joints. One person would be shearing while the other holds the sheep in place to stop it running off and causing mayhem. The sheep can then be put back on it's feet and again be kept in place while the shearer works over the back and neck area. When the process is completed they look only about half the size they did at the beginning!

After the haircut...

With most of the group suffering aches and pains after the sheep shearing ordeal, Friday was kept to fairly simple and non-physical tasks. Gardening, wild plant identification, bird watching and strimming were the main order of the day. 

The gull chicks are developing and getting bigger by the day! Herring gulls in this case

You may remember a few weeks ago that I featured the bird in the picture below while talking about gull ringing. 

Finally we know the history of this bird

After a bit of hard work and research I have been able to find the history of that particular bird. It wasn't a simple a process as normal, as the history keepers didn't have any record of this particular bird.

My research led me to an email address for a guy in Spain, and after a speculative email containing the picture of the bird we were able to confirm that the bird was ringed by his project in Malaga. This gull is still comparatively young at only 2 years old, and it has migrated between the UK and Spain in both years of it's life to date. It was seen in mainland Cardiff last summer and is now frequently being spotted on the island here.

This weeks rather amusing news story comes from Sweden and looks at the crazy things some people will do to get around dress codes where they work:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22828150

See you all next week!

Week Ending 2nd June 2013

So here we are in June already, even though most days you wouldn't know it yet! The bank holiday weekend afforded us an extra day off last weekend, although we ended up using the afternoon for work purposes anyway. With the tide being a long way out we decided to complete the cliff count that was missed originally from this year's gull count.

The team split into 2 groups; one counting Herring Gull nests and the other counting Lesser Black Back nests. 3 hours later with the tide rapidly coming back in, we had completed the count finding another 250 Lesser Black Back nests and 231 Herring Gull nests. This took our grand total of Lesser Black Back nests up to 3856 (indicating 7712 birds). If you were to include the Herring Gulls in the count then we would be looking at over 8000 gulls currently resident on the island!

Baby Lesser Black Backed chick

A large percentage of the eggs that have been laid are now starting to hatch, and small chicks are a common sight around the island. The parents are now becoming even more aggressive as a result though which can make for some uncomfortable moments while walking through the colony.

Stuart being swooped at by one of the gulls

Tuesday saw a boat trip from Weston-Super-Mare arrive with us for the day, but unfortunately the weather didn't play ball with driving rain present for most of their stay with us. Unfortunately for me I was leading guided tour that day, and it ended up taking all of 3 days to get my clothes dry again afterwards! Everybody still seemed to enjoy their day with us none the less though.

A bit of maintenance took up most of Wednesday's time with us having to secure the roof of one of our storage buildings. 

Supporting props newly installed in the store room

The rest of the week was made up with odd jobs around the island, before Saturday night we had our first BBQ of the year! 

Vicky and Stuart at our BBQ

We had a good laugh on the island at this week's news article which is all about nicknames for your loved ones http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22699938

See you all next week!