Bardsey's Wildlife: Early Spring update

Tuesday 26 February 2019

Early Spring update

A surprisingly prolonged period of settled weather has allowed for a few boat trips over to Ynys Enlli over the last week, although it's still a couple of weeks until the Obs team arrive to start the 2019 season in earnest. Ben Porter managed to steal a day's visit to the island on Monday, and reports back on the state of affairs with the island's wildlife from a few hours stomping around in the unseasonably warm sunshine...

looking north-east to Pen Llyn from Mynydd Enlli

The rocky cliffs of the East Side were well-attended by returning seabirds on approach to the isle, with Guillemots lining the steeper cliff-faces, hundreds of Razorbills peppering the rocks around Briw Cerrig and Bae Felin; and a few pairs of Shags were already paired up for the season and midway through nest construction. Totals included 11 Fulmars, 17 Shags, 22 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 240 Herring Gulls, 5 Great Black-backed Gulls, 650 Guillemots and 745 Razorbills.

Only 11 Fulmars were present on their cliff ledge nest sites, although some pairs may not have been in attendance on today's visit

Guillemots prospecting cliffs and partners ahead of the 2019 breeding season. The cliffs will be looking a little more white-washed in a few months' time!

A walk of the coastline revealed the island's wintering Oystercatchers to have dispersed and paired up around their territories along the shore, with 107 birds counted, whilst a gathering of waders at high tide around the Narrows included a Whimbrel, 45 Purple Sandpipers, 31 Curlews, 10 Redshanks and 36 Turnstones. A single Red-throated Diver was present off the South End, alongside some stunning breeding-plumage Cormorants with white-frosted head attire.

Towards the more vegetated refuges away from the shore, the Plantation held four Chiffchaffs and a singing male Goldcrest, along with a Painted Lady and Peacock butterfly feeding on the Pussy Willows; a scattering of 15 Stonechats - some doubtless newly-arrived migrants - populated patches of flowering gorse, and 48 Meadow Pipits, two Skylarks and a Song Thrush were seen in the pastures and coastal fields. Perhaps the highlight of the visit was a Short-eared Owl, flushed from the rushy fields near Ty Pellaf Withy. A single Jack Snipe and 28 Common Snipe also revealed themselves after some traipsing through the wetter rush and boggy wetlands.

Aside the birdlife, there were a handful of Seven-spot Ladybirds dotted around, no doubt wafted in on the warm southerly winds, whilst clouds of the dung beetle Aphodius sphacelatus swarmed along parts of the summit ridge, honing in on patches of fresh sheep dung. There were 128 Grey Seals hauled out in Henllwyn and along the South End, but surprisingly no cetaceans to be seen considering the flat-calm seas.

We'll have to wait another couple of weeks until the BBFO team arrive for the next update - hopefully there will be some Wheatears hopping along the coast by then!

The day's Chough count was just nine birds, although some of the non-breeding birds which usually spend the winter on the island may be elsewhere on the mainland instead. Even so, this is a worryingly low count considering we'd hope to have eight or nine pairs beginning to nest build in the coming month

Oystercatchers in the roaring westerly swell, despite a complete lack of wind

Painted Lady - whether this individual is a true migrant or has emerged more locally is hard to say, but with the current weather conditions it could easily be from further afield

Seven-spot Ladybird

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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.

Bardsey's Wildlife

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Tuesday 26 February 2019

Early Spring update

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