What's going on this week then?

The seabird counting has finished for the season for now so with less fieldwork, but we are keeping busy with more visitor related things on the Isle of May NNR.

The May Princess crowd disembark and get a cold welcome from the Terns

A small sailboat stops at The Alterstanes for a spot of Lunch

It was a very busy weekend for boats coming out with lots of tourists visiting the island. At least eight boats were in the harbour at high tide on Sunday safely moored behind the May Princess.

Calum an I have been very busy tidying up the paths after all the rain that has fallen. Holyman's Road is almost passable again. The path edging is now finished along Three Tarn Nick .As well as watching the Terns Paula and Lucie are getting on well with scraping the doors ready for a fresh coat of paint.

The Swallows built this nest in the Bath House but unfortunately left soon after.

But hopefully this bird will fair better as it's sitting on 4 eggs in the freezer room. This is the first breeding attempt for twelve years on the island. The last pair raised two chicks.

A dip in the harbour.

Well it is all change here. Today was the warmest day for a long time out on the island illustrated by the fact that most island residents were in shorts for at least part of the day. Only a few days ago we still had fires lit, were wearing thermals and hats and had to resort to a medicinal whisky each night to prevent hypothermia. Suddenly warm weather has arrived and so have the visitors.
                                       
 Being on the east coast this means a bit of fog in the mornings when the top of the mainlight kept appearing and dissappearing but once it had burnt off then things turned hot.

 The effect has been immediate as last night we had 11 moths in the moth trap compared to the 3 moths for the previous 6 weeks.

 The cliff nesting birds incubating eggs on the cliffs had to put up with the baking until their partner gave them a break. It was great to see they relieved of their duties and drop down onto the sea from their ledge and wash clean their plummage and cool down.This guillemot was panting with the heat while the razorbill below it was suffering from having a nesting ledge lower down the cliffs (raining guano).

It has also changed the researchers behaviour, phone calls can be made outside, we have even eaten tea out-side twice and ...

....tonight a (very quick) swim in the harbour.

 Anything the Farnes can do we can do as well.
It is peak seabird season with so much to see and with this weather set to hold a bit longer, its a great time to visit the island.

Rabbit proofing - The proof

One of the tasks John and the other volunteers had to do was to get the rabbit proof fencing fixed in the garden. I was stood on the veranda and took this sequence of picture that show how well it's working

The potatoes are now in and we'll hopefully have a lot of fresh produce come summertime! Let's keep the lagomorphs out!

Isle of May on the BBC

The Main Lighthouse on the Isle of May

Back in July David and volunteer Alice met John Sergent out here on the island. They were filming for the 'One Show.' They were going into the mainlight. We don't have a TV set out here so we missed the original broadcast. We have watched it back on the BBC i-player. It is great to see the island featured on a prime time show.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b013lr0r/The_One_Show_17_08_2011/

We are about 23 minutes into the broadcast or I as like to call it, the headline feature.

There will be a unique opportunity to visit the Mainlight on the 4th of September. On this day we will be celebrating the islands Lighthouse.