A weekend of change in the weather

The weather has swung back round to the west. The weather is pleasant and warm but this means that all our star birds from last week have disappeared. 

There are still a few waders around the island including this Purple Sandpiper.

The Great Grey Shrike left on Saturday.

One of 2 Perigrines belting around the island. 

With the weather improving the moth trap has been active. This attractive moth is a Streak.

This featured Thorn was trapped on Saturday and Spruce Carpet is a rare moth for the island.

Kirkhaven - More like Singapore Harbour

All I've been doing all weekend is meeting boats. With the Lowlight run, Wind farm contractors and building material coming out. Once one boat was away another came in prompting builder Gordon to say 'It's busier then Singapore Harbour out here!'

You don't see the May Princess in backwards very often. The Princess made 3 runs over the weekend.

The Forth Linesman came in with another 20 tonnes on board, taking advantage of these big spring tides.

Colin with the RIB Osprey leave via the false entrance. I hope he is keeping count the amount of runs he made this weekend!

Radde's warbler and other news

 This bird below might have taken a wrong turn, it normally travels in autumn from southern Siberia where it breeds to south-east Asia and southern China where it winters, but instead has found itself on the Isle of May is pouring rain and a howling wind. It is called Radde's warbler and it is only the 7th island record. Such is the life of the long-distant migrant. The interesting bit is that originally it was thought that birds that end up in the UK have something wrong with their navigation system but now it is thought that actually a small part of the population migrates in the opposite direction to normal as a way of establishing new wintering areas. So this one is really a trailblazer.

 It is a cracking little bird, I know it looks a bit of a funny shape in the picture above but that is the strength of the wind getting under its tail!

And in other news......despite the appalling weather the builders are pushing on with the works on the foundations of the new visitor centre against a backdrop of Kirkhaven all foamed up.

Jeremy admiring the waves.

And meanwhile the seals are getting on with it. Below is the open day seal pup that everyone got to see in the scope, pup no. 2. Today I caught it at the milk bar, and each day it seems to get bigger while its poor Mum seems to deflate. It only has another 4-5 days and then it will be on its own so it is making the best of it at the moment.

And a new arrival pup no. 6 just born on Rona this morning.

Today - shrikes and seas.

 We are getting some "weather" at the moment. The south-easterlies have been picking up since Monday and building a big swell that is thundering onto the island. It makes for some impressive back drops as you get on with everyday tasks on the island. And your eye keeps getting drawn back to the next rolling curler coming in looking to see if it was bigger than the last.

 Kirkhaven harbour closed! Entrance impassable.

At least someone is enjoying the seas.

And here on the island easterly winds mean usually migrant birds and often interesting ones. The last few days have been a steady succession of species pouring onto the island, often tired and wet and desperate for food. In amongst them have been some specials, today we had our first great grey shrike of the year - a raptor songbird adapted to eating other songbirds (plus insects, small mammals and ringers).

Also found was a reed warbler, a rare and hard bird to find on the island and a long way from its normal breeding habitat of reed beds. It is a real skulker and this bird was comparatively speaking a show off, appearing on the side of a bush 2 or 3 times fleetingly.

Another day of strong easterlies bearing migrant promise before the wind goes round to the south-west, it is enough to get me out in the buffeting gusts early tomorrow morning just to see what has come in next.

Back door migrants

This posting isn't about the Tory party conference or even the Daily Mail but instead is about what I saw from my back door yesterday ...a yellow browed warbler flitting amongst the burdock, the first one of the day.
Usually the first thing I do every morning is to open the back door and have a look at what is going on with the day. Yesterday morning this gave me a good clue of the day to come. A chiffchaff zipped out of the fish box vegetable beds and then another joined it on the brae behind. I always reckon if I have migrants by my back door first thing then it is likely to be a good bird day. And as soon as I headed out it proved to be right. Parties of bramblings and chaffinches, redwings and song thrushes whirled overhead and grounded migrants started to appear, a whinchat down at alterstanes, a wheatear at St. Andrews Well. a tree pipit near 3 tarn nick and later redstarts, reed buntings and ring ouzels. By lunchtime more had come in, the species list had lengthened and immediately behind my cottage was not only a yellow-browed warbler but 2 chiffchaffs, a dunnock, a robin and a lesser whitethroat, all being bullied by the resident rock pipits.

So I do consider myself very lucky to have outside my back door not only a sheltering spot for a range of migrants but also earlier in the year a pair of nesting rock pipits that I watched as I drank my coffee and of course a hillside of puffins, the closest burrow not much more than 20 yards away. As back door steps go this one is pretty good. 

Migrant birds keep turning up....

Here's the scene from Sunday. All the inhabiatants of the island mooching around a corner of the island. This happens from time to time on the island. The reason is that there is a scarce or rare bird on the island. Birds are now arriving in force because of the easterlie winds wich are hitting the coast.

We've had lots of Yellow-browed Warblers in the last week but very little else. On Sunday birds really started turning up with good numbers of Redwings and Song Thrush. Many of these are turning up from Eastern Europe.

This time however we were looking at a Red-breasted Flycatcher, a less then annual visitor to the island.

 

The flycatcher is feeding in the sun in the South Horn Gully

Little Bunting

This slightly less attractive but eqaully welcome visitor was up near the Sheepwell. Another Scadinavian migrant which was present over the weekend. We were also lucky enough to have an Olive-backed Pipit which is a visitor from Asia on the island on Monday

This Redpoll is from Scandinavia and was really tucking into the dock seeds. We see a few of these every year but they are rarely as tollerant as this. Must be hungrey after the long journey over the North Sea.

We are now spotting a few Redstarts. This bright youngster was enjoying the sunshine near the Lowlight.

Look closely you can spot a woodpecker on the wall. This bird is likely to be a Scandinavian migrant. Other birds of this origin have been trapped and ringed along the coast. This bird is grubbing insects out of the short grass near the Tennis Court.

We'll be out again seaching the island for migrants. You never quite know when the  next 'Biggie' will be found but we will keep you posted.

What a way to end the season

  The puffins may have kicked off the 2013 season but the seals well and truly finished it. For the last 2 days that visitors could visit the island this year we made the seals the focus and it was a chance for visitors to find out a bit more about these special creatures. The weather and the seals themselves helped to make the Seal Weekend absolutely fantastic. With 5 pups born on the island now and the big bulls starting to appear around their beaches the seals are now dominating the island and even Jules reappeared for the visitors on the Sunday after disappearing for a few days.
 

Jules

 Over the weekend over 200 visitors made it across to the island. They heard from some of the seal researchers that spend 6 weeks of the winter living on the island in amongst the seals, the heard songs and stories from Claire in the South Horn and they got to look down telescopes at various vantage points to get better looks of seals and most popular of all seal pup no. 2 who managed to get itself into a position for most people to get a glimpse of him.

Pup no. 2 learning to swim.

And so today the Osprey and the May Princess headed out of Kirkhaven harbour to bring an end to what is likely to be the busiest visitor season in the history of the May. (Well actually in recent times, we do know that in medieval times 50 000 pilgrims a year made it across to the island and we are not at that level ..yet!).
I haven't added all the figures up yet but when I do I will post them but in the meantime many thanks for everyone who came over to the island and made it such and enjoyable season.

But this isn't the end of the blog so keep following it and we will keep you posted on what is happening out here.