We’re all aware of the tough time our coastal communities have been having this winter, one aspect which has been less well reported in the media has been the effect of the stormy weather on our coastal wildlife. Marine species, in particular many of our seabirds have been having a particularly hard time of it. Here Ramsey Island Warden, Greg Morgan, writes about the difficulties many of our seabirds have been having this winter.
Living on Ramsey Island this winter we have been exposed to some of the worst weather we’ve experienced since Lisa and I first moved to the Island as Wardens in 2005. Arranging deliveries and getting food across to the island might have seemed a challenge for us but this was nothing compared to what are seabirds were going through. Witnessing such horrendous sea conditions turned our thoughts to how they were coping.
In recent weeks we’ve been beginning to hear about the effects of the rough weather on our seabirds. We’ve been receiving reports of hundreds of dead seabirds washing up on beaches across Wales. The situation has been much the same across the rest of Europe - around 28,000 dead seabirds have been reported on beaches across Spain, France and the UK. A number of these birds which have washed up on Europe’s beaches we fear are likely to have come from Welsh and other UK colonies.
Seabirds such as guillemots, razorbills, and puffins spend their winters out at sea in the north Atlantic and have been struggling to survive the poor sea conditions. Most seabirds only come ashore for a short spell in the summer to breed on rocky cliffs such as those on Ramsey Island and will spend the rest of the year out at sea. They rely on the sea for food year round and during stormy spells feeding becomes increasingly difficult. If such conditions persist they lose body condition and can die. Sadly across Wales alone there have over nine hundred birds recorded dead so far, with at least six hundred of these being razorbills.
Image taken by Dave Boyle
Thankfully not all seabird species have been so drastically affected by the stormy weather as some migrate for the winter and will therefore have most likely evaded the worst of the storms (read more about this in next weeks blog).
For the true picture of this winters storms we will only have a full idea of the impact on Ramsey's seabird colonies this summer when we do our annual count of the breeding seabirds on the island. Keep an eye out next week for my next blog on some of the other seabird species which visit the island in the summer and how they may have avoided the worst of the storms.
Ramsey we will be open to the public for day visits from 1st April to 31st October. A visit at any time of year is special but the best time for seabirds is late May through to early July. For boat booking details contact Thousand Islands Expeditions on 01437 721721. You can follow us on Twitter @RSPBRamsey