Anyone who has visited Ramsey this year will know there is a major engineering project going on at St Justinians. The RNLI are building a new lifeboat station to replace the old building in order to house their new Tamar lifeboat.
Such major works inevitably means some night working which in turn means the use of lights. Given the proximity of all this to Ramsey it has the potential to cause problems for our Manx shearwater population. This burrow nesting seabird is nocturnal on land and artificial lighting sources, such as lighthouses and oil tankers, are known to cause disorientation in certain conditions which can see birds striking the light source or ending up far inland and at risk of predation.
Manx shearwaters (in particular fledglings) are susceptible to artificial light pollution having evolved over millions of years without it
I therefore contacted the site manager and sent an information leaflet about how to mitigate for this and what to do in the event of finding grounding shearwaters on the building site. The RNLI and BAM Nuttall (the building contractors) then invited me over to give a talk to them about this in more detail.
I would just like to say a big thank you to RNLI site mananger Rhodri Jenkins for this very positive move and I look forward to working with them going forward to try and keep impacts to a minimum. Thanks too for the site tour afterwards! It was great to see this incredible feat of engineering from the 'other side' having watched its progress over the past year from this side of the water
The new RNLI lifeboat station work site at St Justinians (existing lifeboat station in background) - due for completion in July 2016
Just to prove I complied with H&S regs! Nice view from the site with our house in the background!