Bardsey Bird Observatory 2015

From the 21st to the 29th of August, Myself and 7 other members of Next Generation Birders visited the Welsh island of Bardsey to stay at the Bird Observatory. For the first two days there was only four of us on the island since the other four had gone to Birdfair, Myself, George, Ephraim and David had a two days to have a wander and get to know the island and what Steve and the team expected of us, the first day consisted of just getting to know eachother more but it was the Sunday where everything kicked off! The day started with Steffan finding a Balearic Shearwater which unfortunately none of us managed to get on, by noon we were just having a chat in the common room and doing quick seawatching sessions which resulted in me finding a Black Tern flying about Carreg Yr Honwy which is a small cluster of rocks off Bardsey, David had a look to confirm my ID and then quickly ran outside to find everyone else which failed miserably, by the time people had got the scopes on the area the bird had disappeared, Steve had two Black terns in the morning meaning mine was likely one of the two. Each night were all gathered in the Common Room to do Log, this is just collecting the sightings and counts from throughout the day, its a brilliant way to keep track of everything being seen on one day aswell as the amount of banter going on is brilliant!

#TeamBardsey group photo

Monday arrived and after setting up the nets in the garden and doing a few rounds, the other four and Ben arrived and everyone got stuck in with the moth trap. It was a regular event to rush to the scopes to watch either Common or Risso's dolphins jump or splash around in the sea aswell as listening to the Seal's calling to eachother from all over the island. One evening Steve, Steffan and Ben led a walk for everyone to get to know the Manx Shearwaters of Bardsey, due to the moon and the lack of clouds it meant that there wasn't a great deal of Manxies around but some youngsters were coming out of their burrows meaning we could ring them! Mark and Jeff had set up some Storm Petrel nets and after almost giving up and beginning to head back to the lodge, Mark radioed to say they have two Stormies in the nets! As you can probably tell by the face in the picture, I was ecstatic! The smell of them is just divine but hard to describe.

From Monday to Friday, both NGB teams: #TeamBardsey and #TeamSkokholm were competing in a Welsh Islands Bird Race. #TeamBardsey got off to a great start by racking up some common island birds meaning by day three we were already on 60/70 species and just relying on some more species to be pushed in by the winds. Since there was a lack of Manxies on the night, we decided to go down to the North End to search the burrows for Manxie chicks were haven't fledged yet. The day was a huge success having ringed 5 birds myself! Even the non-ringers were allowed to ring a bird under the guidance of Steve who is an A permit holder for Ringing. Everyone had an amazing time shoving their arms down burrows and pulling the little balls of fluff out and carrying down to where we had set up the ringing station, most of the birds were well behaved with only minor scratches and bites off the birds except one of mine which decided my whole front was the perfect place to do it's business!

 Overall, everyone had a great time on Bardsey and NGB cannot thank Steve, Emma, Steffan, Mark and all the guests who were so friendly towards us and cannot wait to start planning the next NGB trip to the island aswell as a few person trips for myself.

Patch Life

After trailing behind for most of the year, I've finally had the time to wander around my patch at WWT Llanelli for some new patch ticks. Having no patch ticks throughout July and none so far for August, it was time I pulled my finger out and found some ticks!
I stayed down the hides for a hour after finishing my shift at 5pm with only my bins, hoping that something decent came past. A little while after only seeing Gulls and Black Tailed Godwits, something caught my eye in the distance, a quite large white bird was making its way around the back of the scrapes, having to swap windows and then figuring out where I was originally looking, I got the bird in my bins only to see it was the Spoonbill that had been seen the day before! Spoonbills are an annual visitor to the scrapes but was the first of the year (although much later than last year..) and one of my favourite birds to see on the reserve. Having watched this bird be tormented by Lapwings, I decided I would give the estuary a quick check since the sun was beginning to set which meant the haze wasn't too bad to see through, the gulls were coming in to roost on the estuary but the cockle pickers then scared them off with their trucks which then meant they came closer, a quick look at the group showed most to be Juvenile LBBG or Herring Gulls, except one bird caught my eye. Looking at it, it didn't quite look like either of the other gulls that were there but my head clicked with could it possibly be a Yellow-Legged Gull? Having never seen a Juv Yellow-Legged gull before I was a little doubtful with my ID, flicking through the Colins it looked more likely to be a YLG juv! Patch Tick! 
Excited by the bird, I turned back to the huge flock of Black Tailed Godwits sleeping in front of me. As they were huddled so close together it was rather difficult to look at every individual bird, after going through as many birds as I can one bird hunkered down in the grass caught my eye, after one Godwit finally moved I could see the bird's feathers properly and it was a very pretty Ruff! 2 Green Sandpipers were the highlights of the following day a patch and life tick for me! 

New Blog

Why the new blog?

The simple answer would be, since my previous blog I have matured as a person and realised my previous blog would be considered by some as "silly". The old blog would have rambling about nothing constructive and realised that people who could be my potential employers would like to read something constructive and strictly wildlife instead of my usual rambling (which lets face it do go on forever!).
I've decided to move on from that person and be the person who I want to be and it doesn't bother me in the slightest who reads this blog now, before my anxiety alarm bells would be going off saying "Old school friends could be reading this!" or "what if someone sees" and you know what? It doesnt bother me now, I am an environmentalist, conservationist and naturalist and if people don't like me for who I am then they are not the type of people who should be around me. I love to share experiences and of course plenty of photos to be posted! I will attach the old blog to this post for people to still be able to read my previous posts but of course they will no longer reflect the person I have now become.

Previous Blog: https://onegirlandhercamera.wordpress.com/