Another unseasonably wet and windy day in Pembrokeshire; the perfect opportunity to crunch some numbers. Bird numbers of course!
So having spent most of the day surrounded by maps and notebooks full of bird records from this spring’s fieldwork we finally have the definitive numbers for 2015. These include all our breeding birds from dunnocks and wrens to peregrine and chough. We also made a start on the 5-yearly full seabird survey, with counts of cliff nesters like guillemots and razorbills completed this June with the tricky burrow nesting seabirds; Manx shearwater and storm petrel due in 2016.
It was a good year for wheatears, with the number of pairs nesting in our stone-walls and rabbit burrows back up to 85 pairs from a relatively low count of 59 pairs last year. Linnets were up too with 66 pairs, undoubtedly benefiting from the swaths of seeding grasses across our fields this year, a result of low rabbit numbers. Our new arable plot, planted with wild bird mix is absolutely jumping with these small finches at present.
Meadow and rock pipit numbers were remarkably similar to those recorded in 2014, just one pair different in both species.
Out on the cliffs, Guillemots were at their highest number ever with 4,403 individuals counted by land and by boat during the first three weeks in June. Our thanks go to Thousand Islands Expeditions who yet again sponsored our boat based seabird counts, providing boats, skippers and crews free of charge.