This week we had none other than our regular volunteer John who again dedicated his week to monitoring our Chough. John often comes for the Chough fledging period to help us work out what's happening with our Chough pairs. John made a monumental effort this work and visited all our chough nest sites throughout the week in addition to assisting with our day visitors. We can't thank you enough for all your hard work John, we certainly couldn't have monitored all our Chough without your help! As a result of Johns's efforts we now know that 5 of our Chough pairs have now fledged chicks, with more to come.
Including-
2 Fledglings at one nest site
1 Fledgling at one nest site
3 Fleglings at one nest site
2 Fledglings at one nest site (poss more)
A Chough Fledgling on the South © Nia Stephens.
John departing after his week volunteering on Ramsey © Nia Stephens.
We also welcomed back the lovely Entemolgists Sarah & Phil who stayed for several days surveying the invertebrates on the island. They had some great finds and will be sending us a list of their records very soon which I will of course share on the blog. Thank you so much, Sarah & Phil, for coming over and doing some invert surveys for us, we can't wait to welcome you back again soon.
I have attached a collection of photos of some of Sarah & Phil's finds.
Mullein Moth Caterpillar © Sarah Loving & Phil Powel.
Long Hoverfly © Sarah Loving & Phil Powel.
Speckled Bush Cricket Nymph © Sarah Loving & Phil Powel.
Downlooker Snipe Fly © Sarah Loving & Phil Powel.
Sarah in action with her sweep net on the South © Phil Powel.
Sarah & Phil leaving the island © Morgan Schofield.
The St Davids's lifeboat and the Pembrokeshire Coastguard did a drill on the island on the 15th. This involved placing 'Dead Fred' (a lifesize dummy) in an unknown location on the island for the teams to rescue and take off. 'Dead Fred' was placed on the steps of the compost toilets with a broken leg, and was then stretchered off the island and onto the lifeboat. This was all completed very successfully and it was great to collaborate with the RNLI and Coastguard for these drills.
St Davids's lifeboat crew heading into the harbour © Nia Stephens.
St Davids RNLI & Coastguard Team © Nia Stephens.
The Coastguard using the stretcher to extract 'Dead Fred' off the Island © Nia Stephens.
Derek came over on the 13th to help us take the empty gas bottles off the island to be filled again for later on in the season. There were 33 in total to go off and it took several lifts with the crane to get them all off. Thank you so much for your help as always Derek!
Derek placing the gas bottles into the boat to be taken round to Porthclais © Nia Stephens.
Weekly Wildlife Round-Up
Other than the very exciting news about the Chough we had our first seal pup born this week on the 14th! Thank you very much to the crew at Voyages of Discovery for sending this record to us. Unfortunately, we cannot get a good photo of this pup as it's at the back of one of the caves and it can only be seen by boat.
We also managed to snap a nice photo of the Red Deer calf on the Northen end of the island over the weekend.
© Alys Perry.
Family groups of Starlings are starting to appear on the island with 20 being seen on the 16th and 10 on the 19th.
Big flocks of 30 Sand martins were also seen over the farmhouse on the 16th.
Our Oystercatcher chicks are getting very big now and startling to look much more like adults.
A fledgling chick next to its parents. If you look closely you can see little whispers of down still on the fledgling © Alys Perry.
An adult Oystercatcher with a snack © Alys Perry.
Many different species of jellyfish are now being seen daily around the island.
This beautiful Compass Jellyfish was photographed by Nia during one of our evening swims © Nia Stephens.
In terms of plants, our first emergence of Bog Pimpernel appeared this week and the Bell Heather is also starting to come out in flower.
Until next week
Alys Perry
Assistant Warden
Assistant Warden Ramsey & Grassholm Island