Apologies for the 'radio silence' of late, its been a busy few weeks. We always open on April 1st or Good Friday, whichever is the earliest. Normally when Easter is early the weather is too rough so we lose out. This year the middle 2 weeks of March were flat calm and settled and things were looking good. Good Friday came and we opened on time! But only 2 people turned up! Perhaps in protest the weather reverted to type and the rest of the Easter weekend was a washout.
We did however welcome our 2016 Visitor Services Intern, Sarah Parmor. Somehow she has escaped being photographed yet but I'll get one before long! We spent the Easter period showing Sarah the ropes and eventually the weather settled to allow us to have a good boatload of visitors yesterday.....but today its windy again and the weekend looks 'iffy'!. Sarah has made a flying start and dived straight into giving her first introductory talk taking to it like a duck to water.
Going back a couple of weeks to the halcyon days of mid March when base layers were discarded and sun cream was applied, I took the opportunity to plough up the arable plot in readiness for planting later this month. You might recall this is an experiment we tried last year. It proved successful so we are giving it another go. It has several purposes, one to provide us with winter fodder for our sheep so we don't have to bring additional feed on for them over winter (not only is this cheaper and easier on our backs but it also cuts out any biosecurity risk in respect of accidentally introduced rodents); secondly it provides 3 acres of seed heads for flocks of autumn and winter finches to feed on (not to mention the chance of a rarity lurking within) and lastly, if the winter is tough, the spilled seed will act as a supplementary feed source for chough.
Concentration etched on my face as I guide our trusty 65 year old Massey Ferguson tractor up and down the furrows (not quite as sunny that day as I seem to remember!)
My companions for the week! Up to 100 gulls (mainly herring and a few Lesser black backs) followed the plough at times with a core of 25-30 ever present
By summer it should look like this. A mix of kale, rape and turnips for the sheep plus barely, spring triticale, radish, white millet and quinoa for the birds
Flocks of up to 200 linnets (a red listed species in Wales) made use of the arable plot last autumn
Our first volunteers of the year are due tomorrow but the forecast is not promising so they might be delayed by a day or two. Speaking of volunteers one of our regulars, Steve Bool, raised £150 for the island by completing the Cardiff 2016 half marathon in a very respectable time of 1hr 45m . Steve is spending 6 weeks on the island this summer but in the meantime a big thank you!
Steve in his custom made RSPB Ramsey running vest!
More to come soon on new spring migrant arrivals, the return of the Manx shearwaters and the countdown to lambing. For now though, fingers crossed that the weather allows a few more visitors to get here next week. The kettles are on!......