Last week I was lucky enough to travel to the tiny island of Copinsay with seabird researchers Juliet Lamb and Yvan Satge. To the east of the Orkney mainland, Copinsay is one mile long, half a mile wide and has been uninhabited since 1958. The island is now an RSPB reserve, home in summer to thousands of nesting seabirds. Here is the island seen from Corn Holm, which is reached by a tidal causeway and is home to a colony of grey seals (seen here in the water):

Juliet and Yvan are working for the Future of the Atlantic Marine Enviroment (FAME) project and are studying fulmar, shag, kittiwake and razorbill on the islands of Copinsay, Swona and Muckle Skerry. On this trip they were catching shags (using a fishing-pole device) and fitting them with GPS tags that, over the next fews days, will track their journeys to find food. The birds need to be re-caught to download the information, which will be used to inform legislation on Marine Protected Areas. Here is a shag, about to be released after being fitted with a tag.

On Wednesday 16th May a Little Egret was located at our Loch of Banks RSPB Reserve, an unusual visitor to Orkney at any time of year. Local photographer Morris Rendall managed to get a superb shot of the Little Egret with a family party of Greylag Geese. This image illustrates two very success bird species in the UK over the last 15 years (perhaps a little longer for Greylags!). Who would have thought in the 1980's Greylags would become such a widespread breeding species on Orkney with an estimated 1500+ pairs and on the south coast of Britain breeding Little Egrets now almost number 1000 pairs, the first pair bred in Dorset in 1996! It just shows how quickly things can change in the bird world.

Portrait of Little Egret & Greylag Geese at Loch of Banks - Morris Rendall
"I wonder if that Greylag would miss one of those goslings!"

This spring has been colder than the whole of last winter with a steady northerly wind recently. Today, while surveying Hen Harriers on the Birsay Moors there were clear signs of spring. I was treated to a pair of Twite getting stuck into a road kill rabbit for nest lining material. Those eggs will sure be cosy... The pair made several visits to the carcass and would then disappear for 20 minutes or so. There could easily have been more pairs involved as at one point three birds came down by the rabbit. Nature at it's best.

While on the subject of Twite I had a nice email from a birdwatcher on Skye informing me that they had seen a colour-ringed Twite at Greshornish, Skye this week. It turns out it is one of the birds ringed on Orkney this winter and shows just how far these wee birds travel to breed from their wintering grounds here. Of the 400+ ringed this winter, we have had birds to Fair Isle, Shetland, Caithness and birds staying locally within Orkney to breed.

Hello, a quick introduction first. I’m Izzy and I will be based at Onziebust reserve, on Egilsay, for the next 9 months. I will also be keeping and eye on the Trumland reserve on Rousay. I’m originally from the (very) southern county of Kent – but seem to keep migrating north. I spent the summer of 2010 working at the Loch Garten Osprey Centre and over-wintered at Forsinard Flows, then headed off to experience the midnight sun on a remote reserve in the East Fjords of Iceland. Late in 2011 I migrated south for the winter and went back to my home county to work for Kent Wildlife Trust before following the geese north to Orkney.

The variety of wildlife out on these two island reserves is quite amazing and very different from each other. Black guillemot, cormorant, shag and eider duck can all be spotted from the short ferry crossing from Tingwall. If you keep your eyes peeled you might be lucky to see the occasional diver and dolphin.

Our Trumland reserve covers the highest point of Rousay and following the trail up to Knitchen hill (227m) takes in some of the highlights of the reserve and you won’t fail to notice the deep heather that provides great nesting areas for hen harriers and merlin. A raven has taken to keeping watch over his territory from one the trail markers and fulmars can be seen resting on the on the rock ledges left from glacial terracing

Bog pools on Trumland reserve, Rousay. (c) Andy Hay, RSPB Images

 Next door Onziebust reserve on Egilsay the high point is barely 35 meters above sea level and the majority of the island is farmed with sheep and cattle. Farmland birds are the name of the game here and you’ll find skylark, meadow pipit, linnet and twite – as well as a couple of peacocks that roam around Onziebust farm. Lapwing and oystercatcher are abundant in the fields and you can regularly hear the bubbling song of curlew. Ringed plover run along the shoreline of Egilsay’s white sand beaches and Arctic and great skua are often seen patrolling the shoreline and the fields.

White sandy beaches, turquoise sea - yes this is the orkney Island of Egilsay. (c) Isabel Morgan

I am still waiting for some of the birds to settle down for the breeding season, the Arctic and sandwich terns are mooching about but don’t seem ready to settle down yet. The starlings and blackbirds have been zooming passed the window, heading over to the cowshed with a cargo of feathers to line their nests; and whilst checking the black headed gull colony a sudden movement from a grassy tussock alerted me to a skylark's nest with a clutch of four dark green mottled eggs. Some of the wild flowers that will soon adorn the Onziebust meadows are starting just to break into flower and I am sure that an emperor moth flew past me whilst I was waiting for hen harriers on Trumland.

I’m still keeping an ear open for the distinctive crex-crex call of the corncrake, but as of yet no noise – perhaps its been just a little windy for them.

Just so you all know what I look like when I'm looking a bit windswept. Keen observers will notice that it isn't Orkney in the background - this is from my former life in Iceland. (c) Isabel Morgan