The warm weather of the rather strange Easter weekend (strange as in we should have been welcoming hoards of lovely visitors to the island but instead the harbour sat empty) has been replaced this week by a chill north easterly airflow, although it is still sunny. After the very wet winter the island is drying up fast with no rain to speak of for over 3 weeks. It looks like we might get a bit this weekend and it will be much needed as our chough will be relying on soft ground through spring in which to access the soil and extract those juicy morsels to feed first their incubating partners and then hungry chicks.
The spring like weather seeing us top 17c last weekend but down to overnight temperatures of under 4c of late has been played out through the birds we have been logging. Yesterday a rare spring brambling was recorded, usually only an autumn migrant out here and even then not annual. It was backed up today by a fieldfare, again a late record as it heads north to breeding grounds most likely in Scandanavia. On the flip side, today we recorded our first whitethroat of the year, fresh in from Africa or southern Europe this warbler species breeds in the limited amount of scrub and bramble that survives on Ramsey. Today also saw 4 house martins swooping round the house and spending most of the morning spring cleaning some of the nest boxes that many visitors would have enjoyed watching with a cup of tea over the years.
Manx shearwaters continue to return in greater numbers. Today a regular pair from nest box 102 were in their burrow by day so I took the chance to switch their geolocators for new ones and tomorrow I will download 12 months worth of data on where they have been over winter and which route they took to get there. I may have said it before but it never ceases to amaze me when the same pair of birds return to the same burrow year after year, after having spent a winter apart, but in the same sea area, off the coast of Argentina
Distant photo of today's late fieldfare
First whitethroat of the year (photo: Sarah Parmor)
Pair of Manx shearwaters together by day in nest box 102 - freshly back from a 14,000 mile round trip to Argentina
Lovely blog. Keep them coming. Never seen a fieldfare although I've seen flocks that I thought might be them! Terrible bird spotting skills! Down the allotment there were lots of butterflies. Peacocks common blue and a fritllary a small one not sure!! Never seen that type before@ Very small. Oh well. Thanks Greg ⅖