Blogs

It's all go at the moment with our seal pups. We are well over the 100 mark now on our monitored sites with 40 visible on our longest beach, Aber Mawr. One cheeky individual decided to beach himself on our landing steps today! He refused to move when the boat came in so our visitors had to cautiously walk past him while we stood guard to make sure he didn't lunge at them! He was hissing and snarling and shattered the illusion many had of the "cute" white seal pup! He was recently weaned and fully independent so was not reliant on the cow anymore. As I type this the tide is rising and he will soon be washed off the steps and back in his natural environment!

The settled spell of weather continues and we have seen a slow trickle of migrants over the past few days. Willow warblers, chiffchaffs and blackcaps have moved through, as has a common sandpiper, golden plover and a little egret. The purple sandpiper roost is now up to 17. Swallow movement is well underway with the spectacular sight of at least 11,000 streaming through during the course of the morning on 11th, with at least 6,000 the next day.

Terrible weather this week with gales, severe at time and heavy rain. We had gone a whole week without any boats to the island, until we managed a half-day for visitors yesterday. However, no sailings again today and the unsettled spell, (if you can call 8 weeks a mere ‘spell’) looks set to continue for a few more days. Although for anyone thinking of visiting it does look to be settling down from around Wednesday onwards…..

 We all began to run out of food, although the island’s tuck shop helped to sustain us. A run on chocolate and flapjacks kept the energy levels up but we now have the most enormous tabs to pay off. A more serious problem is that we also ran out of toothpaste, not great with the amount of sugary snacks we have been consuming. So please don’t be offended if next time you see us we don’t greet you with a big smile, it won’t be personal, it may just be that all our teeth have fallen out!

 Luckily, supplies arrived in the shape of our new volunteers yesterday and the toothpaste crisis has been averted. We also had gifts of home-grown tomatoes (to ward of the scurvy) and a rather handsome Cheese plant, that although looks very statuesque in our kitchen window, apparently does not produce lumps of cheddar at regular intervals. Shame……

(by Lisa Morgan)

As well as looking after Ramsey Island, we also have responsibility for Grassholm Island, two of Pembrokeshire's finest islands, (not that I'm biased!)

Grassholm lies 7 miles south west of Ramsey off the Pembrokeshire coast and is home to the only colony of northern gannets in Wales. We carry out an aerial photographic survey every five years to establish the number of breeding pairs on the tiny island (a mere 9ha in size).

In 2004 the figure stood at 32,094 pairs. Following the 2009 survey this has increased to 39,292 pairs, an increase of 22%. This confirms Grassholm as the 3rd largest colony for this species of gannet in the world (behind St Kilda and Bass Rock (both in Scotland)) and accounts for 9.5% of the entire world population of this species! As a result Grassholm is designated as a National Nature Reserve and a Special Protection Area.

The question most commonly asked is "how to you count 39,292 pairs?!" The answer is, luckily, I don't! We employed an environmental consultant, Stuart Murray, an expert in this field, to carry out the task. He has counted the colony for the past 2 surveys (spanning 10 years) so this helped to keep the counting consistent. Firstly he had to hire a light aircraft, fly over the island (at a height of no less than 1000ft to avoid disturbing the birds) and then take hundreds of photographs on his state of the art digital camera. He then picked 8 of the best photos that gave 100% coverage of the island, enlarged them to A3 size and spent many...many..hours counting each individual bird on a nest!

So why the increase? Firstly, some of it is real. There are areas that have obviously increased when you compare previous photos. Over the past 10 years gannets have bred very successfully. Between 70 and 80% of nests have fledged a chick. A sufficient number of these have returned to breed and accounted for some of the increase. However, some of the increase, and it is impossible to say how much, is down to improved camera technology. In 4 years things have come a long way,  the quality of image is now far superior and you can zoom in much further. What we can safely say is that this is the most accurate count of the colony that we have ever had.

The next survey is due in 6 years time. How much further can the colony increase?!

There are no public landings permitted on Grassholm due to the disturbance this would cause the breeding birds. However you can take a boat trip around the island to experience this amazing spectacle. Contact the RSPB contracted boat company, Thousand Island Expeditions, on 01437 721721 for more details. Due to the distance the island lies offshore, good weather conditions are required to get out there. As we head into autumn these become few and far between. Trips may run to the end of September if we get a calm spell, otherwise try again in spring or summer 2010.

Further to Greg’s last blog entry about the early start to the seal pupping season, I now have some figures to back up our observations.

Each year we follow the progress of pups born on 9 beaches around the island, basically sites that we can safely view from the cliff top. These beaches only account for around 50% of the total pups born on the island each year, the other half are born in Ramsey’s sea caves, where we have very little chance of seeing the pups inside.

However, the beach sites do give us an indication of pup production and the timing of the pupping season, which we can compare from year to year.

On 26 August last year, we had just five pups on our study beaches, whereas this year we already have a total of 21 as at the same date. It will now be interesting to see how the rest of the season pans out and whether the peak of pups born, which is usually around the third week in September, will be any earlier this year.

Our latest arrivals have already had to cope with the biggest tide of the year and the tail end of hurricane Bill, with no major casualties to report, so we could be on for a bumper year.

Remember, the island is open until the end of October and is the ideal place to get close up views of Atlantic Grey seals and their offspring.