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Last Saturday we made our annual October visit to Grassholm. It was a relatively calm day but we still had a rough and very wet boat trip to the island. The inaccessibility of the island one of the reasons that Grassholm is home to a thriving 39,000 pairs of gannets.

The aim of our visit is to cut free gannet chicks that have become tethered to their nests and that, without our assistance, would soon be abandoned by their parents to a slow death by starvation.

This problem arises because when the adult male gannet builds and refurbishes his nest in the early spring, he will bring home natural materials like seaweed but unfortunately, he will also find large amounts of plastic debris. Monofilament fishing line and packaging tape floating on the water are a problem, the orange and blue colours seemingly make this potentially deadly string even more attractive to a gannet passing overhead. Crisp packets and even a plastic coat hanger were also seen incorporated into nests this year.

Monofilament fishing line is the main offender. It is so strong that that a bird caught by the leg has no chance of freeing itself. The nest, which should be a place of safety for the growing chick, can quite literally become a death trap. It takes a sturdy knife and a lot of careful patience to free each chick, which is then able to leave the island and fledge naturally.

This year we cut free 50 chicks in the short time we were on the island. Many adults were still in attendance and so our visit was brief to avoid undue disturbance. Greg and I were accompanied by three intrepid helpers, all experienced in the safe handing of large seabirds with extremely large and powerful bills!

As we move into October, we say goodbye to our last residential volunteers of the season and what a busy, productive and fun 7 months it has been! We take volunteers on the island from April to the end of September and the scheme goes from strength to strength. In 2009, we welcomed 45 separate individuals to the island, giving up a total of 75 weeks of their time to help on the reserve, which would not function without them.

Volunteer jobs on the island are always varied, depending on the time of year and the weather conditions. In April and May, we are all busy lambing from our flock of 200 ewes. Special mention has to go to all those who started work at 6am and finished at 11pm, without a grumble, in order to bottle feed our 4 orphaned lambs.

In the spring, many hours were spent sitting out of the cliff tops, regardless of the weather, watching caves for signs of chough activity and many miles were walked helping to map the every increasing wheatear population.

Summer was busy with day visitors to the island and all volunteers help with meeting and greeting, giving information and some assist with guided walks and introductory talks. And of course no Ramsey summer would be complete without the compulsory bracken bashing, ragwort pulling and thistle topping, tough going but a necessary evil.

More unusual tasks this year included looking for beetles in cow pats, positioning plastic puffins on the islands cliff tops, catching sheep and chickens, emptying the composting toilet and counting rabbits! All genuine jobs I should add, not just created to amuse the island wardens!

Furthermore, not only have people donated their precious time, but many have also given many fantastic items for use on the reserve this year. Further improvements to the volunteers’ bungalow are now possible thanks to new curtains for every window, light shades and a new sewing machine (which I have now learnt to use).

Our evenings are now even more entertaining with Trivial Pursuit, a personalised Dartboard and loads of new music to bring the wardens collection up to date. A new voice recorder will enable us to survey our Manx shearwater population more accurately and make our guided walks more interactive. Gifts of vegetables, strawberries and cream, chocolate, whisky and dog treats were all much appreciated by island staff.

So a massive Thank you from Greg and myself for all your hard work in 2009, we are grateful for all your efforts and good company and hope to see you again next year. And of course there is always room for new recruits!

It's been all go this week on the media front. On Tuesday we had S4C over filming for Ffermio (a Welsh language farming programme). The piece focused on our newly arrived Welsh Black cattle and our other farming interests on the island. I gave an interview along with our shepherd Derek Rees and Dana from our media department in Cardiff. Dewi our Border Collie seemed to be the star of the show though! It will be broadcast on S4C in the coming weeks sometime on a Monday night (S4C is the Welsh version of C4, also available on some digital services outside Wales)

Yesterday,  BBC Radio Wales came over to carry out an interview with me on seal pups while today, BBC Wales filmed a piece for local news programmes in English and Welsh, again on seals.

Talking of seals, all is still going well. Plenty of new pups still being born and lots of large, healthy looking older pups in evidence too. With boats only running until the end of October this is the last chance to catch up with them on Ramsey this season. Phone our boat company on 01437 721721 to book a place.