A few more random shots from this week.

Ian Fisher borrowed the moth trap and caught this Lime-spec Pug. What a stunner! He also took the photo.

Arctic Terns continue to hatch young and even still laying eggs. New nests were found on Wednesday.

This Razorbill jumped just hours after Carrie captured it with my camera!

 Many Kittiewakes are fledging this week.

Last weeks rescued Shag looks no worse for wear after the ordeal it has been through.

We were double figures at the weekend. Like the birds on the cliffs, we are all jumping too. We were down to 6 on Thursday.

Black-winged Stilt - First record for the Isle of May

Black-winged Stilt

On the 30th April I'd just settled down for a late lunch when Mike Harris dashed in shouting he'd seen a Black-winged Stilt at Horse Hole. I dropped my Sandwich and ran to the other end of the island. Unfortunately the bird had gone. I proceeded to search all other water bodies on the island with Mark.

The last place to search was the South Plateau where there are two small pools. As we climbed the slope Mark spotted the bird at the back of the pool. We were delighted. It was a very unlikely vagrant first for the island.

The bird is an elegant wader. Black above and white below with a black cap and a needle thin mid length. It's most defining feature is the long pink legs.

Black-winged Stilts are resident in the Mediterranean with a few breeders in creeping up to northern France. They are a rare visitor to the south coast of Britain with only eight previous records for Scotland. The last time this species was seen  was in the Outer Hebrides in July 1990.

We released the news. The bird was twitched by just a couple of mainland birders but hopefully more visitors will be able to enjoy it if it stays.

 

 

 Mikes field notes!

There was also a Nightingale present on the island. This is another very rare bird for Scotland. David and I managed to photograph it to help identify from it's very close relative, Thrush Nightingale.

Nightingale

The board on Monday.

The friendly seals....

During the Autumn and Winter there can be as many as 4000 seals around the island. During the summertime there are a lot less but a few youngsters hang around.

Curious seals will often follow the May Princess into the harbour. Last Sunday the May Princess was due in. David had found a seal at Kirkhaven on the beach. Once we had established it was healthy, we decided to push it off just in case it panicked when the boat came in. The seal reluctantly disappeared.

David stands with the seal at his feet

While I was was walking along the path at the top of the lower landing I saw what I thought was the same seal hauled out. It was happily lying down and people were photographing it while it basked in the warm sun

Close proximity to a seal - A fine way to connect with nature

Back at the top landing just as the boat was about to leave a seal was really showing off. It was porpoising in the water and ignoring the procession of people it clambered onto the land and was shaping up to go to sleep.

The seal ignores everyone and come ashore


The seal did not mind the close up shots - Seal on right

This picture was ruined by the expanded polystyrene on it's head

Being so close up was a good chance to study the animal closely - See the broken whiskers

Normally seals hiss and snort when approached. They do not like to turn their back on you until they know they can escape safely. Seals that are this tame are quite uncommon. The seal was enjoyed by everyone who was on the May Princess that day.

It was not until the Princess had gone that we realised there were two seals. The animal on the bottom landing was present the next day when the Seabird Centre Group

This seal was the welcoming committee for the Seabird Centre the next day

There are plenty of seals to be seen around the Isle of May NNR at the moment. They are quite easy to see hauled out on the rocks, whether you are on the island or from the boat. You won't always be as lucky as this though.

Beach Rubbish

Pink footed geese migrating in off the North Sea at sunset.
Sunrise on the Isle of May this morning + watched with the first coffee of the day = no better start to the day.

The end of the visitor season on the Isle of May came to an end rather abruptly with the last few days of the May Princess sailings being cancelled due to crew illness. This made the Scottish Seabird Centre RIB that came on Sunday the last visitor boat for the year. It appears that it has been a record breaking year for visitors but we won't know for certain until we have a total up of all the boat numbers over the season.
So now we are doing a general tidy up of the island and shutting down all the visitor facilities so they don't get too battered by the winter gales. As part of this tidying up I did a last beach clean of the season at Pilgrims Haven so that it looked good for the last boat and the beach was clear of rubbish before the seals haul up. We do this regularly, probably every 2 weeks and it is always a depressing job because of the amount of rubbish that turns up, and often the same items. There must be plenty of footballers missing the target by a long way judging by the number of footballs that get washed up. Single shoes are another regular, but never a pair. But by far the commonest item is plastic bottles. For this last beach clean I picked up 44 plastic bottles of different types and everyone of them will have been discarded by someone in an irresponsible way. Of course those collected can now be sent to be recycled but it still leaves thousands just around the Forth that are gradually being broken up by the sea. The chemicals from the disintegrating plastic don't just disappear, they get taken up by organisms living in the sea and are concentrated at the top of the food chain, namely seabirds and seals. This is just one example of how people living miles away from the island can still have an impact on the wildlife there. So if you want to do one thing to help the puffins and seals that are so popular here then please recycle you plastic bottles.

Isle of May Seal Day

It's nearing the end of the season now. The tourist boat only has just over a week to run and though the visitor numbers are dropping, the numbers of grey seals start to increase as the males and females gather to give to mate and birth. September sees the opportunity get a look at these fascinating mammals and learn a bit more about their lives in the North Sea.

On Sunday 25 September, a seal expert will be on the boat explaining about the seals as the boat passes their haul out spots on the rocks at the ends of the island. Once the boat lands visitors will be able to visit the two viewing points set up on the cliffs, where there will be viewing scopes and experts on hand to answer questions about the seals.

For young people, and not so young people, the South Horn will host stories and songs about seals and selkies from Scotland’s rich mythological tradition. Selkies (also known as silkies or selchies) are mythological creatures found in Scottish, Faroese, Icelandic and Irish folklore who can shed their skin and turn from seals into humans.

The average first date of a seal pup is around the 22nd September. I've been out looking every day but have had no luck so far. There are however some very big haul outs of very big bulls all around the island. I can also hear them wailing as I walk about the island. The seal pupping season will be in full swing after we all gone away for the season. We will be replaced by the seal researchers.

Sailings to the island will be on the privately operated May Princess from Anstruther harbour, leaving at 11.00am, as well as the Scottish Seabird Centre boat from North Berwick at 11.10am.

For details on Anstruther Pleasure Cruises, who operate the May Princess from Anstruther, see the website http://www.isleofmayferry.com/, email info@isleofmayferry.com or phone 01333 311808. The Scottish Seabird Centre boat runs from North Berwick, for more information see the website http://www.seabird.org.uk/ or phone 01620 890202

Catching Up

No visitor boat today as it is blowing hard from the west and has been raining for much of the day. So a good day for catching up, including, of course the Blog. Well the seals are getting more frequent and more curious. The one above was watching me in the harbour. The seal below was trying to sleep but the incoming tide and waves were making life uncomfortable - time to move.

A couple of days ago another blogger Mark Avery visited the Isle of May. Mark, as Director of Conservation for the RSPB was an outspoken champion for wildife in the UK and he put his views over in a very popular and well-read blog. He has now left the RSPB and is self-employed and still writes his hard hitting blog. With trepidation I went on to find out what he had written about the Isle of May. The link here (http://markavery.info/blog/) will let you read the entry for the 28th August but luckily he was very complimentary about the island, nearly as complimentary as he was about Fiona from the May Princess, none of the rest of us got a mention though.
Yesterday evening was beautiful, though today the shepherds would have been hiding their faces this morning. I took a few photos of the angel and the bishop at Pilgrims Haven while the shags watched me from the stack.




Today it is a different scene, but that is the Isle of May, never the same, always changing.