Bardsey's Wildlife

Saturday 7 August 2010

The 2010 Bardsey Autumn Birding Tournament

The big event of the last week was the beginning of the hotly-anticipated Bardsey Autumn Birding Tournament on the 1st of August. Until the end of the season, points will be awarded to the finders of uncommon birds on the island, with resident and visiting birders competing to score the most points each week. At the end of every visitor week (usually Friday night), the week’s points will be tallied up and the winner announced on this blog.

In addition to the weekly events, birders who will be on the island for the whole autumn will keep a running score tally until the end of the season. The four competitors signed up for the long event so far are Richard Brown, Richard Else, Ben Porter and Steve Stansfield (although any other entrants will be welcomed).

Competition progress, highlights and the inevitable controversies will be detailed here throughout the autumn, so keep checking the website to find out how events unfold. Which visitors will manage to out-bird the professionals? Who will find a high-scoring mega rarity? And who will ultimately claim the coveted title of Bardsey Birding Champion 2010?

Week 1: Competition review and results.

In addition to Brown, Else, Porter and Stansfield, competitors in the opening week of the tournament were visitors Alex and Gerry Johnson from Essex and the Lawrence family, captained by dad Martin, from the West Midlands.

The opening day of the tournament got off to an inauspicious start, with no points scored during the morning despite several entrants making a special effort to be out in the field at dawn. The first breakthrough came in the afternoon, with Alex and Gerry notching up a point for finding a Great Spotted Woodpecker in the North West fields.

The early leaders then managed to double their advantage the following morning, securing another point for the first Arctic Skua of the autumn. The two-point lead was then held for two scoreless days before the 5th of August saw two competitors draw level with the leaders: Ben Porter and Team Lawrence both finding a Greenshank independently, and scoring two points each.

There was all to play for going into the final day of the week, with three entrants topping the leader board on two points apiece. The morning yielded no points for anyone, but late in the afternoon Porter managed to nose into the lead with a single point for a flock of Black-tailed Godwits on the Narrows. We thought it was all over, but Martin struck back immediately with a last gasp equaliser for Team Lawrence by finding a timely Bonxie off the South End.

So at the end of a rather low-scoring week of competition, Ben Porter and the Lawrence family shared the victory on three points each, with Alex and Gerry coming in a close second despite their promising start. It was not a good week for the observatory staff, who failed to score a single point between them.

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Click to see inside!

Edited by Mike Archer, Mark Grantham, Peter Howlett and Steve Stansfield and published by T & AD Poyser, this fabulous book describes how much has changed since the first edition of Bird Observatories in Britain and Ireland was published in 1976. There are detailed accounts of the history and work carried out at each of the 18 observatories, with personal accounts by wardens and staff of the excitement of discovering a rarity, watching thousands of migrants attracted to a lighthouse after dark, and the pleasure and experiences that working at some of the country’s most remote and beautiful locations can bring. Click the picture of the book to see inside or to buy your copy.

Migrants

Being sited on the main migration route of many species, Bardsey (or Ynys Enlli in Welsh) is a well-known site for migrant birds, turning up many scarcities and rarities, as well as large numbers of common migrants. The island’s list now stands on 326, after the recent addition of Citrine Wagtail in October 2012.

Although Bardsey’s reputation for rare birds may not quite match that of some observatories, it is almost certainly the best site in Wales for rarities. Among Bardsey’s rarer visitors are the first Summer Tanager (1957) and Yellow Warbler (1964) to have been recorded in Britain and Ireland, as well as American vagrants such American Bittern, Sora, Kildeer, Spotted Sandpiper, Grey-cheeked Thrush, American Robin, Song Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Red-eyed Vireo, Black-and-white Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Blackpoll Warbler. To add to this impressive list of rarities, Black-winged Stilt, Lesser Yellowlegs, Lanceolated Warbler, River Warbler, Western Orphean Warbler, Booted Warbler, Blyth’s Reed Warbler, Eyebrowed Thrush, Thrush Nightingale, Red-flanked Bluetail, Isabelline Wheatear, Black-eared Wheatear, Collared Flycatcher, Blyth’s Pipit, Pine Bunting, Rock Bunting, Yellow-breasted Bunting and White-throated Sparrow have all been recorded.

Besides the rarities, Bardsey regularly attracts large numbers of weary migrants during 'fall' conditions in Spring and Autumn, largely a consequence of the fully operational Bardsey Lighthouse. In 2011, for example, a single grounding of migrants resulted in over 1000 Willow Warblers making groundfall on the island in August. In the not-so-distant past, a single attraction of 40,000 Redwings occurred in late October at the end of the last century.

Breeding birds

Bardsey is home to some 26, 000 pairs of Manx Shearwaters, which can be heard on dark nights from mid-March to August. They breed in their excavated burrows, which are scattered all over the island. Chough is the most important species of conservation concern, with between four to eight pairs nesting around the coastal cliffs most years, and a wintering flock of up to 50 individuals. A pair of Peregrines breed on the island, and a 1-2 pair of Ravens also nest most years. There are several species which nest only occasionally, such as Sparrowhawk and Little Owl, along with Afro-Palearctic migrants like Sedge Warbler, Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler. Up to ten pairs of Stonechats can nest in the isolated gorse patches around the island, along with many Linnets and Meadow Pipits. Corncrakes were once a common breeder on the island, although since 1970 there have been no confirmed pairs nesting. In recent years the likes of Lapwing, Yellowhammer, House Sparrow and Starling have also all become extinct as breeding species. In contrast, Shelduck, Puffin, Long-eared Owl, Grasshopper Warbler and Goldcrest have been added to the breeding bird list since 1998.

Ringing

Ringing is a very important part of the observatory’s role on the island. Since 1953, the observatory has ringed over 315,00 birds of 198 species. The highest number ringed in a single year was 1988, with a total of 11, 301 birds ringed of 93 species. There have been many days in the observatory’s history when several hundred birds have been ringed in one day; these occasions have mostly involved breeding seabirds, although these numbers can also easily occur with migrant species.

Lepidoptera

A total of 561 species of moths have been recorded on the island. Bardsey is not an overly good location for scarce moths, although the existence of Thrift Clearwings (Nationally scarce) has been established on the Thrift plants around the coast in recent years, after first being recorded in the years 1980 and 1996. Migrant moths arrive in small numbers every year, for example the annual arrival of Hummingbird Hawkmoths in the autumn; rarer immigrants in the past have included Death’s Head Hawkmoths, Vestals, Crimson Speckled and Red-necked Footman.

In recent years, a greater emphasis has been placed on recording and identifying the so-called ‘micro-moths’, which has resulted in the finding of 41 new species for Bardsey since 2011. In 2012, the coastal subspecies of Eana penziana (E.p.colquhounana) was re-found on the island, which was the first time that this Nationally Scarce species had been recorded on Bardsey since 1966. Apotomis semifasciana is also amongst the scarcer species of micro-moths to inhibit the island (also Nationally Scarce).

Butterflies are present on the island in small numbers, with species such as Common Blue, Small Copper and Small Tortoise-shell being the most common. A scarcer breeding species is the Grayling, which can be found in small numbers on the top of the mountain. Migrant butterflies such as Painted Lady can arrive in their hundreds, although other migrants such as Clouded Yellow and Dark-green Fritillary are quite rare.

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Saturday 7 August 2010

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