Oystercatchers and others - birds on the May.

Now the island is quietening down some of the longer term residents come to the fore. The oystercatchers are one such bird. The visitors are noticing them more and after all being black, white and bright red and one of the noisiest birds here they do stand out. There are usually 15-16 pairs nesting on the island but often none managed to successfully produce chicks as the 11000 gulls make short work of the chicks despite valiant defending by the adults. But this year there seem to be a couple of family groups of adults taking around full sized chicks that have survived the gulls. At least one of these have benefited from the success of the terns as they nested within the tern colony and took advantage of the tern defence system. It must have been a noisy neighbourhood but sometimes noisy neighbours can be very useful (Sir Alex Ferguson might have a different view).

Other residents are working hard on their second broods - this nest of rock pipits was full to burst and burst it did just a few days later when the young left.

A male peregrine has been dropping every so oftens to keep the islands remaining puffins and pigeons on their toes.

Another wood sandpiper dropped in for a few days, only the 25th record for the island and the 2nd record this year of this beautifully elegant wader.