Moving slightly further up the cliff face and away from the hustle and bustle (and smell!) of the auks we find the northern fulmar. The closest relative to the albatross family we have in the northern hemisphere you can find this graceful flyer arcing through the sky at most northern and western seabird colonies in the UK. Flying on stiff wings, covering miles at a time with minimal energy usage they breed on narrow ledges, often leaving their chick unattended when old enough safe in the knowledge it will instinctively use its innate defence mechanism if faced with a marauding predator; that of vomiting an oily secretion forth that would render it's foe flightless if a direct hit was landed.
Fulmar gliding on stiff wings ( G Morgan)
Visitors to Pembrokeshire today would be forgiven for thinking the fulmar is a long established part of the landscape as it can found around the entire coastline from Amroth in the south to Cemaes Head in the north. However the first pair didn't breed here until 1940 at Flimston, following a rapid expansion south from their stronghold's in the north of the UK and Europe. An increase in food discarded by commercial fishing has been suggested as a contributing factor to the spectacular growth. Numbers appear to have peaked in Pembrokeshire in the mid to late 1990's when 2,500 pairs were estimated. In more recent years numbers appear to have, at best, stabilised or are possibly in decline.
This could be for a number of reasons; the decrease in fishing discards since the heyday for this practice in the 80's and 90's (ultimately providing an artificial food supply), the effects of climate change on natural prey availability and/or the tendency for this species to feed on almost anything and everything resulting in it being particularly susceptible to hoovering up large amounts of plastic from the surface of the sea.
Fulmars nest towards the upper reaches of the seabird cliff face, the quarrelsome auks below them ( G Morgan)
When looking at trends in fulmar population data we need to look long term as monitoring this species is problematic. Although they nest in the open, actually spotting an egg during incubation is not a common sight. Unless you have time to spend hours watching each individual, this isn't a practical way to confirm breeding or not. The generic method applied across all monitored sites in the UK is that of the 'apparently occupied site'. i.e. if a bird is sitting tight on a flat ledge (capable of holding an egg without it rolling off) in the first 3 weeks of June, then it is counted. Sounds relatively simple but non breeding fulmars have a tendency to prospect future breeding sites and take up residency alongside the breeders, often sitting on a ledge as if merrily incubating but in actual fact they are sitting on thin air!
As a result this can skew counts from year to year but, over time, the long term picture will reveal the true trend.
So to 2021 on Ramsey and after several years of apparent decline there was a jump in apparently occupied sites to 305. How many of these were pulling the wool over our eyes will come to light over time but you can only count what's in front of you! This is only the 4th time the count has been over 300 pairs and is certainly encouraging after the obvious loss of birds from some sites over the past 4 or 5 years.
As you can see there has been some degree of fluctuation over the years from a low of 215 pairs in 2000 to a high of 321 in both 1997 and 2017. The average over this 28 year period is 268 pairs and as the trend line shows, there has been a marginal increase in this period but overall it has been a long term, stable picture.
The final seabird to consider this year is the kittiwake and this a more complicated and less encouraging tale I'm afraid......