• Warden Cam - cutting free gannets

    Each October we make a special trip out to our Grassholm reserve to cut free gannets that have become tangled in marine debris - for more information on the 2015 expedition see previous blogs here and here

    This year we received the extremely generous donation of a GoPro camera by our Ramsey boat operator Thousand Islands Expeditions. This generosity is nothing new from the company that we have worked so closely with over…

  • Seal pup update

    We count pups on our 9 study beaches every 3 days and classify them into 5 stages from new born (class I) through to fully moulted (class V). At the end of the season this allows us to calculate how many have been born in total on these 9 beaches (which account for roughly 50% of all births on the island)

    Today the number had dropped to 103 but new pups are still being born. They have been lucky so far this autumn in…

  • BBC Radio Wales - Grassholm

    A journalist from Radio Wales, Sarah Moore, accompanied us to Grassholm yesterday and produced this article which was first broadcast today on Good Morning Wales. Click here to listen (skip to 02:26' to hear the piece - just after the bit about the man from Hull and his council tax issue!)

  • Grassholm - October 2015

    Yesterday we once again we made our annual October trip out to Grassholm to cut free juvenile and adult gannets that had become entangled in plastic debris. The bulk of this pollution is from the fishing industry and consists of fishing line and synthetic rope that ends up as waste in the sea. It is then brought ashore by gannets who mistake it for seaweed and build it into their nests. Over the course of the season some…

  • Turnip Anyone?

    Last winter you might remember us blogging about a new arable plot experiment we were trying. It served three purposes (i) to enable us to grow winter feed for our sheep to eliminate the biosecurity risks of bringing food over from the mainland (i.e. rats and mice) (ii) to provide winter stubble for chough (they will feed on spilled seed during tough winters) and (iii) to provide additional habitat for foraging finches…