It's been a tough year for a lot of wildlife on Ramsey thanks to the largely unsettled weather, in particular our swallows and house martins. All was looking rosy for them following a dry and settled spring but following the wettest June on record for the island all that changed.

Our 10 pairs of house martins were all incubating or had small chicks in the first week of June but following 155mm (over 5" in old money…

Apologies for the lack of blogs of late - coupled with a very busy season we have been battling with some 'island life' internet issues - all seems to be sorted now! (*crosses fingers*)

To kick off the return of the blog here is one from our Ramsey Intern, Sarah Parmor with an update on the Manx shearwater season thus far......

Following the successful fledging of the two nest box Manx Shearwater chicks last…

Welcome home EB52672 and EB52673. After 7 months apart, travelling to and from the coast of Argentina, this pair of Manx shearwaters are back in the exact same nest box as 2016 - they were first time breeders last year and successfully raised a chick. Fingers crossed for another good year

Our 2016 survey showed a further increase in numbers of this nocturnal species as it continues to respond well to rat eradication…

The Pembrokeshire fire service arrived on Ramsey just after 9:30 this morning following reports of smoke rising from the island’s Grade II listed farmhouse. Firemen were rushed to the island on the St Davids all-weather lifeboat ‘Norah Wortley’.

Using water pumped from the old mill pond, firemen were able to avert disaster, saving the old stone buildings before they were razed to the ground.

Local…

Our Ravens are sitting on eggs and with the garden blackbirds attempting to build a nest to rival that of their somewhat larger cousins, spring must be here. Despite the cold, damp weather and a distinct lack of sunshine it is time to start keeping an eye on our chough pairs too.  

But it’s all change in the Ramsey chough world, with the loss of two of our oldest birds over-winter.

Firstly is the sad disappearance…

In the past 24 hours we have been hit by wave after wave of fierce, bitterly cold, showers, often containing hail. When I checked the rain gaugue at 10am this morning 25mm (an inch in old  money) had fallen since the same time yesterday and it was still hosing it down! All accompanied by a biting northerly force 7 wind. Not usual for this time of year perhaps but just a few miles inland I knew the weather was quite different…

During our recent October trip to cut free gannets entangled in marine debris (see previous blog) we were accompanied by members of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW to their friends!) Click on the link below to read a fascinating blog written by archaeologist Toby Driver on their findings

Life on the edge of Wales: The archaeology of Grassholm Island

Regular readers of this blog will know every October, at the end of the breeding season, we head out to our RSPB Grassholm reserve,home to 36,000 pairs of northern gannets, to cut free birds (mainly fledglings) that have become entangled in marine debris during the year. OVer the years these posts are a big like groundhog day so to avoid too much repetition I will direct you to previous years posts for more detail -

Big swells have meant no landings for a few days but equally big skies and meaty showers meant  some impressive scenes today. The selection of photos today hopefully do it justice

and one tired dog!......

We have been photographing female grey seals on Ramsey since 2007 in order to track their behaviour and movements from one year to the next.

Many have distinctive scars on their body which allow us to recognise them more easily. Scars can be caused by living in an ever changing coastal environment, resulting from a collision with rocks or scratches from the beach and some are caused when seals fight with other seals…

Over the years this blog has documented the devastating problems Ramsey’s burrow nesting seabirds faced when brown rats were accidentally introduced to the island via shipwrecks in the 1800’s. With eggs and defenceless chicks easy prey for this voracious alien predator a once thriving puffin colony became extinct, storm petrels disappeared and Manx shearwaters were severely impacted.

In 1999/2000 under the…

Ramsey Reserve Intern Sarah Parmor with an update on her season

I’m already half way through my internship on Ramsey and the new experiences just keep coming.

I had very little experience of field and survey work before I started here and this was one of the main things I was looking forward to doing. For the first three months of the season, Greg, Lisa and I have been doing regular breeding bird surveys and…

At the moment our days are consumed by all things Manx shearwater. We are in the middle of a full survey (which takes place every 4 to 5 years) and are eager to know if the upward trend seen in this species since rat eradication in 2000 continues or will the initial surge in numbers begin to plateau?

If you are visiting the island or going around it by boat you might see us on all fours with backsides to the skies as…

The calendar says 18th May but its hard to believe where the time has gone. Here is a quick summary of what has been happening on Ramsey so far this month

We finished lambing! The last lambs (a set of twins) were born on 12th - we got the remaining 11 empties in to check them the next day. No signs of udders so out they all went. It was a very successful season - 128 lambs born (40 sets of twins and 48 singles) with…

In April of this year we had a visit from Dilek Sahin, a Yelkouan shearwater researcher from Turkey. Yelkouan shearwaters are only found in the eastern Mediterranean and are a close relative of the Manx shearwater (which breed here on Ramsey). It was a real pleasure to meet Dilek and share shearwater stories. Below is a gust blog by Dilek about her visit 

My name is Dilek Sahin. I have been counting Yelkouan shearwaters…

Farming is a big part of life on Ramsey and we manage a flock of Welsh Mountain sheep for conservation grazing purposes. Chough are one of the island's key management plan species. There are less than 400 pairs in the UK with over 50% of those in Wales; here on Ramsey we have 9 territorial pairs this year. They nest in sea caves and feed on soil invertebrates so short well grazed coastal grassland is their key habitats…

Our 2016 Reserve Intern Sarah Parmor arrived for the season in late March and has hit the ground running! Sarah takes up the story of her first 2 weeks.......

Ramsey opened to visitors slightly earlier than usual this year due to the early Easter weekend so I arrived on Good Friday to start my internship as reserve assistant. The weather and hence boats can be unpredictable this time of the year and as it happened we…

After a bleak day of severe gale force south easterlies yesterday the wind eased today and with a continued light easterly air flow the island found itself dripping with migrants. The highlights were a female marsh harrier (found by visiting Yelkouan shearwater researcher Dilek Sahin), a stunning male black redstart (found by volunteer Kathy) and, argubaly bird of the day...a rook! (found by me....or maybe Lisa, we both…

As the moon waned during the past week the nights have been dark, almost ink black out here with minimal light pollution. Perfect for Manx shearwaters, freshly arrived from their south American winter quarters, to come ashore. Two years ago we installed our first nest boxes in the hope of establishing a small population we could more easily work on. This would allow us to see how many chicks they raise and carry out tracking…

Apologies for the 'radio silence' of late, its been a busy few weeks. We always open on April 1st or Good Friday, whichever is the earliest. Normally when Easter is early the weather is too rough so we lose out. This year the middle 2 weeks of March were flat calm and settled and things were looking good. Good Friday came and we opened on time! But only 2 people turned up! Perhaps in protest the weather reverted to type…

The biggest tides of the year are always around the spring or autumn equinox. This year March and April share that accolade. A few days ago we logged a high of 7.75m followed just 6 hours later by a low of 0.1m. The following photos show the contrast between high and low water in our harbour

The next two shows the Bitches at high and low tide

In fact it was so low we could probably have walked out on to the…

17 days until we kick off the 2016 season! With the early Easter we will be attempting to open on Good Friday, 25th March. I say 'attempting' as in previous years when Easter has been early the weather has usually thwarted us. However after yet another storm due tomorrow the forecast is more promising with high pressure set to dominate all next week. If this continues into the following week we will be all systems go…

After a winter of 'storm' blogs its been nice to have a few days to remind us spring is just around the corner. Its cold but dry and sunny so we'll take that!

We dropped the boat back in the water and took advantage of the calm conditions to get various supplies across from the mainland. With lambing getting ever nearer we gathered the ewes in and gave them a bolus (a big tablet that slowly dissolves over…

It seems like most of our blogs this winter have been about storms! Its been one of those winters I suppose. Well here's another one!

The 9th named storm of the season came crashing in during the early hours. No damage to the buildings so we hunkered down and got on with some computer work in the safety of the house. 75mph logged at Milford, 90+ on the Cleddau Bridge.

I ventured out later in the day and managed…

A quick 2 week mainland trip for meetings and family visits turned into 3 weeks thanks to the weather but we finally made it back across today. Big thanks to Derek and Karen for putting us up for the past week! The sea was the calmest it has been for a while and we had no problem getting across Ramsey Sound. However with the forecast for the weekend and into the start of next week looking less than settled we winched…