Bardsey week 3 (10-16/09/16)

Week three started again with quite a surprise. I was climbing out of bed when Steffan charged into the hut and shouted he had a Great Shearwater cruising past the west coast! Of course I scrambled about and ran outside to the scope. I was instantly put on the bird and I was able to make out a few features before the bird disappeared behind a building. A great start to the week! I don’t envy him for finding it, since I hear they can be an absolute pain to get accepted by the Welsh Records Panel.
The second surprise of the day came in the evening, when a Wryneck was found at Pen Cristin, on the south east side of the island. A quick dash over there and some searching eventually produced my first Wryneck of the autumn! The bird stayed at a fair distance, but still allowed me to enjoy reasonable views through my binoculars.

Wryneck

The week continued to hold a reasonable number of migrants and a new Icterine Warbler at Nant, provided a helpful comparison with the long-staying Melodious Warbler in the observatory garden and my first fly over Lapland Bunting of the autumn was a pleasant surprise.

Wednesday was where it got slightly more hectic. In the morning of the 14th the sun broke through the mist which had fallen over the island overnight, and revealed a beautiful day. Following my morning census of the Withies and Lowlands it was clear there were new birds in. I made my way shortly after to Nant, in hope of something new dropping in and maybe getting some photographs of the Icterine Warbler, which was still present at Nant. It wasn’t long before a new Wryneck was discovered, a small group of us observed the bird before it flew off, being chased by a second Wryneck! After some thorough searching, it became clear there were around three Wrynecks at Nant alone! At the end of the day Wrynecks stood at a grand total of 4 birds, and a single Ortolan Bunting only seen by Steve unfortunately. The next day, Wrynecks continued to parade around the island with some new individuals and others which began to take up grounds for a longer stay.

Ringed Plover

Bar-tailed Godwit

Bar-tailed Godwit

Turnstone

Gold Spot

Canary-shouldered Thorn

Bardsey week 2 (03-09/09/16)

My second week on Bardsey started with a bang! I was pulled out of bed by reports of a Buff-breasted Sandpiper on the South End, the first on the island for exactly 36 years! I chucked my stuff on and ran, by the time I arrived I saw gloomy faces, not the faces of people who had just seen their first Buff-breasted Sandpiper. The bird had flown off, and been lost. The team gave the island a thorough searching despite the 19mm of rain which fell in just a few hours, but to no avail. However, the Melodious continued to show into its second week at the obs.

Meadow Pipit

Seawatching throughout the week produced good numbers of auks flying through and the occasional Skua. Despite good efforts the best bird I could find was a Canada Goose, with under 40 records it makes it a scarcity on the island, but it wasn’t quite the scarcity I was hoping for. Other common migrants were about, including some Spotted Flycatchers, a few Snipe and a Redstart in the Withies. The island was covered in fog for 2 consecutive days on the 5th and 6th, which made birding difficult. However, on the 7th the fog had lifted and revealed a migrant filled island. The morning produced a new record count of fly over Grey Wagtail on the island, totalling over 60 birds! Snipe were also to be observed across the wetlands, White Wagtails covered the Narrows and the usual suspects were still to be seen including Willow Warblers, Chiffchaffs, Goldcrest and even a flock of 40 House Martins past the North side of the island. The rest of the week held similar species, but not quite of the same magnitude.

Bar-tailed Godwit

Turnstone

Personally the highlight of the week for me was the ringing. Early in the week we attempted a Wagtail roost and caught about a few Pied Wagtails and a White Wagtail. Later in the week Ben and I opened the nets in the Withies, which produced a good haul of birds, including Willow Warblers, Goldcrests, a Chiffchaff, a Whitethroat, a Swallow and best of all a Pied Flycatcher! On the Friday evening we managed to get out and do some Manx Shearwater ringing, at this time of year, the adults have abandoned the babies, leaving them to convert the fat that they’ve built up over the feeding period into muscle, ready for their huge migration around the Atlantic. This means 100% of the birds we ringed were juvenile.

Whitethroat

Grey Heron

Swallow

Pied Flycatcher

Bardsey week 1 (27/08/16-02/09/16)

My volunteering stint on Bardsey began on Saturday the 27th of August. Although one of the first birds I saw on my arrival was a juv. Peregrine, the first week has been quiet. There has been a trickle of common migrants passing through, but primarily with westerly winds dominating the weather maps we are still mostly watching the left-overs from last week’s Willow Warbler fall. Which brings us to the highlight of the week, a long staying Melodious Warbler. It has been favouring the south side of the garden and showing most days reasonably regularly. On the 1st of September we were lucky enough to retrap the bird and enjoy close views of a Bardsey specialty.

Melodious Warbler

As I said before, the westerly winds have made migrants scarce on the ground, but we have enjoyed good numbers of Willow Warbler. Close to the beginning of the week we saw a small rise in chat numbers including both Stonechat and Robin, and I was lucky enough to bump into my first Whinchat of the autumn. Other than that Goldcrest numbers have been increasing with the occasional odd migrant, such as Spotted Flycatcher.

Spotted Flycatcher

Buzzard

Redshank

Other migrants have included some sylvias both Whitethroat and Blackcap, and it was a surprise to find out that Reed Warbler was an uncommon migrant on the island having found 2 at Nant in 3 days. Friday has brought the largest number of migrants in on my end with another 4 fly over Grey Wagtails, 2 Spotted Flycatcher, a Grasshopper Warbler and a Redstart.

 Swallow

Little Owl

On the ringing side of things, I was thrilled to be able to ring my first ever Rock Pipit and White Wagtail, using a portable Heligoland trap! We were able to trap around 15 Rock Pipits in one session, which was quite a success.

Comparison between Rock and Meadow Pipit

Mist netting was also relatively successful with numerous Goldcrests and a Garden Warbler being the highlight.

Goldcrest

Also of note was a Convolvulus Hawkmoth!

Last day on Scillys

Although our last pelagic was on Sunday the 21st, our last day on the island was Monday. Our boat was scheduled to leave at 16:30, which gave us a reasonable amount of time to explore the island for a last time. We began at the Garrison where we had good views of the Icterine Warbler before the sun came out.

I then spent a large portion of the day scouring the rest of the Garrison especially the Dead Pines, in hope of a scarce phylosc, but unfortunately nothing but Pied Flycatchers were to be seen. Late news of a Wryneck on the other side of the Island sent me to Pungies Lane for a quick dip before picking our luggage up from the B&B and heading homeward bound on the Scillonian. The Scillonian produced a total of 140 Manx Shearwater, 1 Balearic, 1 Cory's, 2 Sooty and 2 European Storm Petrels. In conclusion, a very enjoyable trip, which I'd highly recommend!

Isles of Scilly Pelagics (18-22/08/16)

On the 17th in the evening Paul and I headed west, to eventually go on 3 Pelagics on the 19th, 20th and 21st of August. It had been more than a year coming since we had booked the tickets, so the trip was much anticipated. We caught the Scillonian III over to St. Marys in the morning of the 18th, were we met up with Rob, who had taken Chris's place, since he was unable to come unfortunately. No time was wasted, and we spent the 3 hour crossing seawatching. The winds were favourable, and instantly after leaving Penzance we observed a constant flow of Manx Shearwaters. Within an hour we had enjoyed good views of Gannet and Fulmar, as well as European Storm Petrel, Common Dolphine and Ocean Sunfish. The highlight came shortly after the hour mark, when Rob picked up a Cory's Shearwater, as it flew east followed by a Herring Gull.

Distant Cory's Shearwater from the Scillonian III

Then as we approached St. Mary's, a large shearwater caught my attention, which I quickly IDed as a Great Shearwater! Other animals of note were European Storm Petrel, Common Dolphin and Ocean Sunfish.

Once we arrived on St. Mary's and had dropped our luggage off at the B&B, Rob and I set off for a short walk towards Higher Moors. At Porth Hellick pines we caught up with 5 Wheatear, our first passerine migrant of the trip and 2 Pied Flycatchers shortly thereafter.

Wheatear

The pines were ladened with phyloscs, but little of interest was to be found. Our next port of call was Porth Hellick pool, here we were lucky enough to get good views of most waders on the pool, which included: 2 Wood Sandpiper, 5 Green Sandpiper, 3 Common Sandpiper, 1 Dunlin and 2 Snipe. Also of note where some common hirundians and acros.

Wood Sandpiper

The 19th began at 6am, a walk around the Garrison produced very little other then some more phyloscs and a Pied Flycatcher. With cloud cover being quite predominant, most birds were still hidden and only came out later in the day.

View from Church Point

Following the success of Porth Hellick pool the day before and the weather conditions, I hoped some more waders had been grounded. Unfortunately, the tally of waders, matched the day before bar a few Greenshanks which had presumably moved on. Walking back to the B&B a Pied Flycatcher and 5 Wheatear were the pick of the bunch. The afternoon came alive as the Icterine Warbler was reported again, and after a brisk walk to the Garrison, we were able to achieve brief views of the bird. That evening we set off on our first pelagic of the weekend, my hopes were high having looked at the weather forecast, gale force winds from the Atlantic had been predicted for both Friday and Saturday.

The Sapphire

We left and headed into the sheltered waters, so as to not feel the full force of the 50mph winds. The weather delivered and shortly after leaving the harbour in Hugh Town, St. Mary's we already had our first Cory's! The numbers built up throughout the trip, along with the wind. Although the swell was higher than the boats at times, we were too overlaidened with Cory's and Great Shearwater to really care. The official numbers showed we managed to get 42 Cory's Shearwater and 5 Great!

Cory's Shearwater

The 20th started very much like the day before, and only really got interesting once we stepped on Sapphire at 11am. The pelagics began much the same with reasonable numbers of Cory's and Great Shearwater. A few miles out, we threw the chum overboard. It wasn't long before we had Stormies surrounding the boat, and not long after the first call of "WILSON'S!" went out.

Cory's Shearwater

Storm Petrel

Repeated views followed, and a grand total of 4 were seen over the whole trip!

Wilson's Storm Petrel

We now come to the 21st. The pelagic began at 8am, and we were out at see and in position shortly after 9. Once again we chucked the chum out, and slowly but surely the Stormy numbers began to rise. Approximately 150 were seen on the trip.

Storm Petrel

We also managed to encounter 3 Sooty Shearwater a Long-tailed Skua another 3 Cory's and 1 Great. Numbers had definitely died down, but there was by no means a lack of entertainment.

 Sooty Shearwater

Great Shearwater

Yellow-legged Gull