Morgan came and joined us for a week of volunteering on the 17th. This was her first time volunteering on Ramsey and Morgan was beaming with enthusiasm all week! Morgan did a fantastic job at doing all tasks set and engaging with our day visitors. Thank you so much for all your hard work this week and amazing passion, we look forward to welcoming you back again next year for more boat trips and sea swims.
Morgan monitoring our reptiles tiles in the South © Morgan Schofield.
Morgan leaving after her week on Ramsey © Nia Stephens.
We had a visit from Dale Sailing on the 22nd, who very kindly brought back our biosecurity monitoring tubes from Skomer Island, who had borrowed them for some biosecurity monitoring over the winter. Thank you so much to the Dale Sailing team for bringing them back to us and managing to deal with some challenging conditions on the gutter when offloading.
Dailing Sailing pulled up alongside the gutter © Alys Perry.
Offloading the ton bags of biosecurity tunnels © Alys Perry.
The Grassholm Gannet census by drone flight was completed on the 20th and our first sightings of Gannets with young chicks were recorded for the year. The counts have not been completed yet as we are still awaiting the footage but I will post them here when the numbers are all totalled up.
In the meantime, we have however totalled up the rest of the seabird numbers for Grassholm.
2023 Census AON
Shag 11
Kittiwake 46
Razorbill 62 (individuals)
Guillemot 4092 (individuals)
Herring Gull 38
Lesser Black-backed Gull 4
Greater Black-backed Gull 11
All the seabirds seem to be doing very well on Grassholm, especially the auks. The guillemots numbers have increased from 2462 in 2018 to 4092 this year. The colony has now spread with lots more guillemots mixing even further onto the island and nesting around the Gannets.
Thank you so much to Thousand Island for taking us out to carry out this important census work.
Grassholm Island © Greg Morgan.
Gannet brooding a young chick on the nest © Greg Morgan.
A pair of Guillemots swimming off Grassholm © Nia Stephens.
Wildlife Weekly Round-up
We are starting to see larger numbers of Chough on the Island with our max count being 36 recorded in the Northern Fields on the 25th. It's likely that our family groups are now joining up with the nonbreeders.
There have been lots of sightings of Puffins this week in Ramsey Sound and on the water around the island. Thank you so much to the boat operators for sending in their sightings.
20 Common Scoters were spotted off Abermawr on the 20th.
5 Whimbrel were seen in the Central Fields on the 19th.
Our Mallard pairs now have ducklings.
A lovely day visitors sent in this photo of a male Kestrel hiding from the rain on the South East Coast. Thank you for your lovely photo!
Male Kestrel hiding from the rain © Linda Witton.
Common Lizards have been more of a common sighting this week as it's warmed up with several being spotted scuteling across the path in the South.
We have had an interesting week in terms of sealife with more exploring of the harbour and caves, which means we have added more to our marine species lists.
Including-
Baked Bean Sea Squirt © Nia Stephens.
Light Bulb Sea Squirt © Nia Stephens.
Dahlia Anenome © Nia Stephens.
Snakelock Anenome © Nia Stephens.
© Nia Stephens.
Until next week!
Alys Perry
Assistant Warden
Assistant Warden Ramsey & Grassholm Island