Melodius warbler

We are being spoilt on the island this spring with special birds coming in almost everyday. After the excitement of the greenish warbler yesterday a second greenish warbler this morning was almost completely forgotten when Jeremy rushed down to Fluke Street after doing very well to find what he thought was a melodious warbler. There was a bit of a rush up Palpitation Brae which lived up to its name and got us sweating like a race horses dodas. The lemony yellow warbler was hoping around the bushes in the top garden, every so often sitting very still making us think it had gone. It took a bit more sweating to move it around eventually into the heliogoland trap when it was bagged and taken down to the ringing hut. There the fine detail of its identification was gone through which involved measuring wing length, looking at the proportional length of its primary feathers and the size and shape of its bill before it was formally identified as a melodious warbler, only the 7th record for the Isle of May (the last being back in 1998) and a great find for Jeremy.
These birds are not common in Scotland, up until 2004 there were over 1000 records for the UK but only 52 for Scotland. It breeds in southern Europe so this bird has overshot on its migration, probably blown by the balmy south eastern winds that also brought the greenish warblers.
Tonight the wind is back round to the north west and picking up so what next ?

Greenish Warbler

 The usually scrum for a rarity photo session.

A bit of excitement today when Mark rang me on my mobile just as I was having an Internet conversation with my boss that he had just found a greenish warbler in the Lowlight bushes. After extracting myself from the conversation as politely as possible (and of course once all business was done) I headed down to join a small bunch of people looking at a very busy, little warbler that was pinging around the edges of the bushes feeding voraciously. It looked initially like a willow warbler but under (very ) close inspection had a small wing bar, a very neatly put together look and a grayish sort of green.  Maybe not as hard to get as excited about as a black winged stilt but still this is a bit of a rare bird. This is the 14th record for the island, the first being in 1955. What was more unusual was that of the previous 13 records only 2 had been in spring, the rest all in early autumn.  In Scotland terms then it still isn't common, Shetland and Fair Isle have seen the  bulk of the previous records (156 up until 2004) but the Isle of May along with Grampians and the Orkney is the next likeliness place for them to drop into.  And as with the island, for Scotland only 11% of birds are seen in the spring, usually when there has been when southerly warm winds have caused them to overshoot their eastern European breeding range.
So the spring migration hasn't yet finished, what next tomorrow ?

Jubilee celebrations in the North Sea

The UK seems to be having a huge party to celebrate the Jubilee and the ripples have even reached us out on the edge of the North Sea. And here is just some on the island sights from the Jubilee weekend. 

 

The RIB Osprey arrived flying the flag. 

Some of the island residents put out bunting.

A 'Britannia' was spotted off the west cliffs on Monday afternoon.

And today on the Royal Jubilee Bank Holiday ER was caught.

In all her royal glory

ER was a puffin that was first ringed in 1991 making her at least 21 years old and was one of 10 caught early this morning. A fine old specimen. 

Not the Royal Yacht but a huge ocean liner passing the island in the evening.

Traffic problems on the island roads meant residents were late for their street party.

The May Princess bringing lots of visitiors on the holiday weekend.

A beautiful full moon over the South Horn brought the holiday weekend to an end.

Dead things ? - call in the sextons

Visitors often comment about all the dead things that are lying round the island and sometimes ask why we don't clear them up. The answer is that firstly things die out here. With some many creatures packed into a small area then death is often and obvious. Disease claims many like some of the rabbits and seals. Old age come to a few. And of course predation also is and has to be a daily happening. It is all part of the cycle of life. And a vital part of that cycle are the undertakers, the ones that clear up the dead things. One of the premier firms in the business are the sexton beetles which we have been finding in increasing numbers over the last few days in our moth traps. There are 6 species of sexton beetles found in the UK, 1 black one and 5 red and black ones. They get their name because their lives revolve around dead carcasses. They have a strong flight and a fantastic sense of smell and when they have sniffed out a fresh carcass they either bury it (small animals such as mice) or burrow underneath it (for bigger ones). They then lay their eggs on the carcass but to make sure it doesn't rot away before the eggs hatch they also inject into the body an antibiotic mix of chemicals that slow down the decay. You might think that interesting but it gets better, as once the grubs have hatched the parents stay with the body to look after them, something very unusual in insects. They tend the grubs as they grow, protecting them from predators and moving them to get the best out of the carcass. But they also cull some of the grubs if the carcass is disappearing to quickly to make sure that at least some of the larva reach adulthood. So if there was no death or we cleared up all the carcasses we would have no sexton beetles and the island would be a duller place.

A black sexton with its big carcass detecting antennae.

Dancing and cricket - Saturday night entertainment

Visitors often ask us what we do for entertainment for our stay on the island and as we have no TV then some are bemused as to what we can find to fill our time. Despite working long hours we do still have some time off and it is all about improvisation and making use of opportunities.
So when Paula, one of our volunteers, let slip that she did a lot of dancing when at home and this coincided with Iain English, the Isle of May bird recorder and well known dance teacher being on the island staying at the Lowlight,  it was too good an opportunity to miss and we put two and two together (literally) and had a Saturday dance night. Normally grubby researchers actually had a scrub, dresses appeared and hair washed. The Mousehouse visitor centre suddenly became a dance hall and the island residents gathered for a few lessons in meringue and salsa.
After talking us through the basics Iain took us through the steps individually, whisked a lady or two around  before he and Paula sizzled  the dance floor doing moves the rest of us could only dream about. We then partnered up and mayhem was unleashed. I am not sure if the Mousehouse or even the island has ever seen anything like it before and the Latin beats had the walls dripping with sweat in contrast to the cold wind outside.

After giving it our best for over an hour we went freestyle before things degenerated to more conventional Bee Gees,  Soft Cell and more bizarrely AC DC and Electric Six.

Another popular activity for after tea is cricket. Football has been banned by the management because of the dangers of injury. This is not due to any care for the island staff but more a concern about what effect injuries might have on collecting data in the field season. So a form of cricket is played with a distinctively local bat and one of the many tennis balls that are washed up on Pilgrims Haven during the year. The rules are unfathomable and some of the hazards needed to be avoided include water tanks, cobbled stones, dead rabbits and nesting eiders. So who needs TV ?

Tern news

From yesterday the traditional Isle of May welcome is fully established, one of the islands most popular birds, the terns are back on their colony by the harbour. Since coming back a couple of weeks ago the terns true to their nature have been a bit flaky with numbers fluctuating but now their are firmly settled in some numbers in the harbour, the chapel and up at the Beacon. And it is the harbour colony that take exception to people walking through their colony.

A visitor's first view of a tern when they arrive.

They are the most fantastic fliers.

Their nests are just scraps in the ground often right next to the paths.

They nest right next to and sometimes on the path up from the jetty so everyone arriving has to walk through the colony and so we ask people and especially photographers to keep moving so as not to keep the birds off their nests.

A squadron of terns overhead.

We always suggest a quick walk through the colony alongside someone taller than you. But if you are tall then just a hat or hand held up usually keeps them at bay. Photographers are often targeted more as they are prone to linger. 

But for how long ? But if recent years are anything to go by then the gulls might get the terns before any chicks fledge.

And it isn't just the visitors that set them off, this female eider walked through the colony and got dive bombed for her trouble.

First blood to the seabirds

From gulls to auks, I started counting guillemot and razorbill plots today in glorious sun and just a light breeze. These are plots of 20 of the cliff faces around the island and the boundaries are marked on photographs that match up to fissures in the rock. This means that an exact part of the cliff face can be counted multiple times and multiple years, 5 times a year to be exact. This is done at the peak of the breeding cycle for these birds before they start leaving the cliffs, this and most other years means between 1st and 14th June. Though the numbers don't tell us much after one year, with many years data we can start to see population trends and see now if these auks are doing well or not so well. It is a very intensive task needing lots of concentration and in doing it you do start to feel a better understanding of the seabirds of the cliffs, a closeness even. So I set off this afternoon to start the very first plot for the season and before even I got to the first vantage point a herring gull smacked me on the back of the head with it feet in protest to me being in the colony. First blood to the seabirds but despite the gull protests I still love doing these plots and am looking forward to the next couple of weeks.

This is the bird coming in for another dive.

It just didn't like me sitting near its nest.

The result - I hope the gulls foot was stinging a bit.

One of the guillemot plots, horsehole stack.

Close up of horsehole stack.