Quiet news week and migration blues.....

This is the start of my second week on the island this season. I'm currently making sure all of our Health and Safety is up to date, checking all the machinery is in good working order, sorting out volunteers for this week, doing the bird log and keeping the fire burning because it is well cold out here.

I've also been cleaning up my computer which has many years of documents on. Many of which are of no interest so the delete button has been used a lot. There are also a lot of random photos. Familiar pictures of puffins sat on the Braes and Guillemots sat on the cliffs but I did come across a file full of migrant birds. I have decided to post these on here before I delete them from the computer. Also there are very few birds about at the moment because the spring is so late here and the bird observatory is no yet opened so there is on one to study the migration.

This Two Barred Crossbill was here in 2001. The breeding range of these birds is normally east of Finland but can appear in Western Europe when food is in short supply.

We saw a few Bluethroats last spring but none of them had as bright blue throat as this male. These birds arrive in May on the island and it's one of the best places to see them along the east coast.

 This Dotterel looks like juvenile. These birds breed on the high tops of the Scottish mountains but pitch down on the Isle of May on there long migration back to Africa.

Red-breasted Flycatchers breed throughout the forests of eastern Europe and a few hit our shores mainly in the Autumn. We saw one here last spring catching flies on the cliffs.

Shorelarks breed in the mountains of Scandinavia. The Danes call them mountain larks which is a much nicer name. This bird was trapped on the island years ago. What a beautiful bird it is to see in the hand.

We put plenty of photos of this annual migrant to the island - Male Red-backed Shrike

 

Reed Warbler

Is this the same bird form a different angle? The answer is no. This is a Blythes Reed Warbler. This is subtly different to the Reed Warblers that breed in the UK. In the early part of the 2000's this was a rare bird in the UK but with there range quickly expanding through Scandinavia they could become a regular feature of the Autumn migration.

Well why am I posting these shots? Spring still seems a long way away and there is precious little migration going on right now and I'm not going to see any of it if my paperwork is not up to date.

Puffin or puffout ? Vote for Puffin for the Big Five?

In case you hadn't noticed it is the Year of Natural Scotland this year - of course natural Scotland is there every year to be studied, enjoyed and examined, so you shouldn't really look at it anymore this year than any other year but it is an opportunity to bring it to the attention of others that might not have noticed all of the resplendent landscape and wildlife that surrounds us in Scotland.
As part of the Year of Natural Scotland there is a Big Five campaign that highlights 5 of the most iconic species found in Scotland, otter, red deer, golden eagle, red squirrel and harbour seal. There is loads of information about these five species and where you can see them including websites and iPhone apps (see links below:)

Scotland's Big 5 app for iPhone - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scotlands-big-5/id602370929?ls=1&mt=8

Scotland's Big 5 website - www.scotlandsbig5.co.uk

But.....none of these animals are found on the Isle of May. So where does this leave the island which from a biased point of view (mine) in one of the best wildlife spectacles in Scotland ?  It is the minimal number of marine creatures in the Big Five that I feel is a bit of an omission, especially with the UK being on an island, surrounded by a long,, biodiverse coastline that because of its geographical position holds important percentages of world populations of some pretty iconic creatures. So what about grey seal or gannet or best of all puffin? Surely one of these should be in the Big Five?
You can have an influence as the public can vote on their favourite Big Five and it can be whatever you think. So if you think that the puffin, or gannet or grey seal represent a much loved, easily recognised species that represents habitats and landscapes that Scotland is famous for the you can vote here - just click on this link. Vote for Scotland's Big Five

All in a day - plenty of variety in one day on the May

A day of variation today on Planet May. ..

The May Princess had to cancelled due to the brutal north-easterly winds that had built up a swell. The RIB Osprey came out (it can deal with a bigger swell) but the visitors were so cold and damp when they got here that we invited them all into PK cottage's sitting room for a cup of tea and a warm up in front of the fire. All those bodies steamed up the camera.
Later the wind dropped a bit and Jeremy and myself did our annual rope safety training under the eagle-eyes of Pete and Glenn. This training enables us (mainly Jeremy) to get to difficult and scary places to do the all-island count of cliff nesting birds later in the season. In the meantime Pete and Glenn had much fun at our expenses as we bumbled around with the ropes.

We had just finished the training when my daughter Holly came up to say that she had found a seal caught up in fishing net. We all piled down to Tarbet for a comedy 10 minutes of swearing, jumping and yelling before we finally managed to get the net off the seal and released it without spilling any blood (ours or its).  Unfortunately Marshall's coat came off worse for wear and Mrs. Blair might not let him back in the house when he gets home on Saturday. This is the second seal caught in netting this spring that we have had to rescue. Though I don't think the seal fully appreciated our efforts to free it, if it hadn't been removed then the seal would have probably died eventually.  Another example of the impact of all the marine rubbish floating in the sea around the island.

At last the eiders are starting to come ashore with a small group of beautiful male and female eiders smooching on the loch.

By evening the wind had dropped right away for the most stunning of sunsets. A complete contrast to the start of the day.

Puffins - some good news - they're back.

First puffin - slightly lost round the back of my cottage.

Second puffin enjoying the early sun.

After a couple of days of one or two brave puffins landing on the cliffs this morning at 0615 (we start early on the May) I opened the back door to see puffins dotted on the brae behind the cottage. 20 or so scattered across the hillside seeming to be enjoying the early sun. By 0800 they were pouring in, the air filled with the riffling whoosh as the zoomed over. For them it is quite a change - for many the last 8 months has been spent on the water, with a bit of flying so to get the legs supporting their weight and balancing their body when on the land requires the firing up of a long dormant programme in their brains. It must feel very strange and need some getting used to. No wonder they are slow in coming onto land, first gathering in groups just off the island until driven ashore by the social pressure of numbers and the drive to breed.
As the morning went on more and more came on, building up a feeling of excitement in their human neighbours, until by early afternoon they all baled out to sea just as the visitor boat came out. So yet again we found ourselves saying to the visitors what they least wanted to hear - "you should have been here this morning!"

Some made it ashore only to be grabbed by the local greater black-backed gulls.

Soon there were loads on the island.

The New May Princess

May Princess moored up on the island.

Our main visitor boat has had a bit of a revamp this year. It has a new owner and skipper, local man Alex Gardner who has many years of skippering boats and knows the local waters very well,  and also a very new paint job, a dark blue hull instead of the previous white. Helping Alex out are the experienced crew of Kevin and Fiona Smith who are on for their 6th (?) year of looking after visitors with expert care. Not only is the island worth visiting but the trip to and from is all part of the experience and you might get the chance to see a whole range of seabirds, whales, dolphins and porposies as you go to and from the island. Kevin is pretty good a spotting anything going near to the boat and pointing them out to visitors. I can't think of a better way of spending a day, but then I am a bit biased.

The delicate turn in the channel after a low water landing.

Heading off after another visit

The awakening of the isle

Love birds on the cliffs.

Lots of fuss as the kittiwakes reaffirm their pair bonds on the nesting ledges.

A bit of rest needed as well.

Gathering flocks of kittiwakes glittering on the sea off the island.

It is a late start to the season, it is cold and the birds are slow to return. But this does have its advantages for me at least. I can see the gradual awakening of the island. Since coming on to the island I have been able to watch the slow build up of the breeding season intensity from the winter torpor. Each morning there are small differences to see in the local inhabitants and what they are doing. Last Wednesday I hardly saw a kittiwake. By Friday  flocks of over 600 had congregated off the west side and yesterday morning I saw my first pair on a Greenface nesting ledge gently canoodling in the warm sun, getting to know each other after the winter apart and building that pair bond again. Later on the cliff face behind the South Horn was full of kittis filling the gully with their musical racket.
Today a handful of shags have started to come onto the island and hang around their nesting ledges at the Maidens where as yesterday it was hard to find one. As for puffins well the numbers hanging around off the island have been building to a few hundred and then this morning a puffin flew down Fluke Street and another was actually seen on the ground behind the Assistant Keepers cottage. Any day now we expect to wake up and find the cliffs full of them. Even the vegetation is showing signs of gradually awakening, on the warmer west side the sea campion is greening up, the fescues putting out shoots faster than the rabbits can trim them while on the east side, exposed to the cold winds, progress is much slower.
In a more normal year much of this all would have happened before I get onto the island, last year, an early year, the first shag egg was laid on 12 March, this year we will be lucky to see one by the 12 April. So though it is cold and quiet I can't wait to get out each morning to see what is happening next.

The fulmars are also back on the cliffs in numbers.

The shag mystery and maybe a bit of an answer ?

One of the returning shags, .

 Six weeks ago there were the standard number of shags on the island wintering and roosting as usual. They have had a hard winter with high mortality all along the east coast of Scotland porbably sue to the stormy weather. One week ago there was hardly a shag to be seen on the island, just when they should be pairing up, nest building and laying eggs. So where have they all gone and why?
For the last few years a project has been running where researchers have been looking for shags in the winter up and down the east coast, identifying individuals by spotting their unique colour / letter combination leg rings. By exaiming this data and also sightings passed on by the public the winter movwements of the shags can be unravelled. It is a case of piecing together thousands of bits of information. And yesterday on the island we found another small piece.
My daughter took a walk on the island and found 2 derad shags. Being immersed in the strange world of the Isle of May she immediately looked at their legs to checked for rings - BINGO - both carcasses had metal BTO rings on one leg and plastic darvic rings with the colour letter combo on the other. But DOUBLE BINGO - one bird also had attached a logger device to the colour ring. This tiny piece of electrical wizzardry plots the geographical movements of the bird so we might just be able to tell where this bird has been over the last few weeks. We will have to wait for the researchers to download and interpret the data but it is more excitment that you would naturally think you could get out of a dead bird.
If you also want this level of buzz then always check the legs of dead birds you find,  record the numbers and colour and send the information in.

Wings and legs with rings of the dead shags destined for the freezer and eventually to be studied for moult patterns. Note the unique individual colour / letter combination.