Stuart started early once again today in order to complete the mountain section of his Breeding Bird Survey. Pro tip if you're visiting Bardsey, the sunrise is beautiful over the mountain for those who get up early enough and walk for it!
Sam opened the nets at Cristin, he and Megan led a 'Meet the Manxies' walk last night which seemed to go well as it was a moonless night, ten people joined the walk and saw the Manx Shearwaters up close. The garden was quieter than hoped but there were singing Sedge Warblers around, as well as quite a few Lesser Redpolls which brightened up the morning ringing. Meanwhile, Steve Hughes had the nets open at Nant and caught a few Chiffchaffs and Sedge Warblers. The Moth Trap Produced some goods with the second Blood-vein for Bardsey(!), the first Foxglove Pug of the year and a Brimstone.
Nant was decent in the morning providing a few of the likely migrants, including a long-awaited Pied Flycatcher! It really has been too long, but it's on the year list now after being seen by Steve Hughes whilst ringing! Another addition to the list came in the form of a Little Egret which briefly dropped onto Henllwyn and promptly flew south.
After loosely arranging a date with Gareth a couple of days ago to go to the East Side in his boat and count seabirds, he decided that today was the day. At 2pm Gareth, Megan, Stuart and Sam headed off to conduct full colony counts of the island seabirds. Boat-based counts are used here as well as land-based in order to build a fuller picture of the seabird populations. Guillemots, Puffins, Shags and Fulmars were amongst the birds counted.
It ended up rather wet but they didn't really care. The rain did however put a halt to plans to ring the Chough chicks later in the afternoon, but they can be done tomorrow instead!
Birds today: one Little Egret, six Ringed Plovers, 2 Dunlins, six Whimbrels, one Curlew, seven Turnstones, one Collared Dove, three House Martins, one White Wagtail, 10 Sedge Warblers, two Whitethroats, 1 Chiffchaff, two Blackcaps, two Willow Warblers, one Pied Flycatcher and Lesser Redpolls.
Ringing Totals, Dunnock 2, Chiffchaff 10 (1), Willow Warbler 2, Sedge Warbler 5 (1), Blackcap 2, Lesser Redpoll 7, Siskin 3, Robin 1, Goldcrest (1), Wren (2) - Total 37
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