Bardsey's Wildlife

Wednesday, 14 October 2026

Today’s weather set in with a southerly wind blowing at Force 6, good visibility, and a choppy sea state of five as temperatures reached a mild 16°C. Marine mammal and reptile observations recorded one Slow Worm tracked by Plas. Grey seal monitoring around the island haul-outs tallied 47 at Henllwyn, 30 at Solfach, ten at Carreg yr Henwy, and three elsewhere, alongside seven pups.

Grey Seal pup (c) Steven Stansfield

Seabird movement and coastal counts featured one Great Northern Diver passing the north end, two Manx Shearwaters, 126 Gannets, 22 Common Scoters, one dark adult Arctic Skua, one Mediterranean Gull, 21 Black-headed Gulls, five Common Gulls, 156 Kittiwakes, four Guillemots, and 290 Razorbills, 16 Purple Sandpipers, five Whimbrels, 43 Curlews, six Redshanks, and ten Turnstones.

Passerine numbers across the island included one Woodpigeon, one Collared Dove, two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, six Skylarks, 14 Meadow Pipits, 15 Rock Pipits, one Grey Wagtail, and five Pied Wagtails, 18 Robins, two Song Thrushes, two Redwings, one Blackcap, one Yellow-browed Warbler, one Chiffchaff, five Goldcrests, 11 Starlings, two Chaffinches, one Greenfinch, two Goldfinches, and 26 Linnets.

Tuesday, 13 October 2026

A westerly force 6 wind dominated the day, with good visibility, a sea state of 4 and dry conditions, temperatures reached 16°C.

The highlight from seawatching was a juvenile Pomarine Skua off the South End, with two Arctic Skua also seen, while a Balearic Shearwater passed the West Coast along with 33 Manx Shearwater. Other notable seabirds included a Black Guillemot and a Puffin, amongst a total of 2609 Auk sp., mainly Razorbill. Five Mediterranean Gull, three Common Gull, 478 Kittiwake and 311 Gannet were also recorded, as well as 10 Common Scoter and a female Pintail off the south end.

On land, a Yellow-browed Warbler was found at Plas, while a Lesser Whitethroat was around the Observatory and Withies. A Snow Bunting was briefly seen at the Narrows and other migrants included 16 Skylark, 12 Goldcrest, five Song Thrush, a Lesser Redpoll and two Siskin.

Chough (C) Elliott Haywood

Elsewhere, a female Merlin was seen around the mountain, six Whimbrel, two Dunlin, two Purple Sandpiper, and two Redshank were recorded, whilst a Great Spotted Woodpecker remained at Nant.

Very little was seen in terms of other wildlife, with a Humming-bird Hawk-moth recorded at the Observatory.

Monday, 12 October 2026

Today’s weather brought misty conditions with mizzle persisting through most of the day, though a short period of good visibility broke through at midday. Winds blew moderately from the South-East at Force five alongside a sea state of three, with temperatures reaching a mild 16°C.

Seabird counts produced 41 Gannets, 27 Common Scoters, 13 Teals, 96 Razorbills, 17 Kittiwakes, four Manx Shearwaters and one Fulmar. Records from around the coasts included 18 Purple Sandpipers, 16 Curlews, nine Whimbrels, nine Turnstones, five Dunlins, two Redshanks, and two Snipe one Little Egret, 150 Herring Gulls, 18 Great Black-backed Gulls, 11 Black-headed Gulls, six Common Gulls, ten Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and a Yellow-legged Gull. Raptors sightings featured two Sparrowhawks, two Merlins, and two Peregrines.

Merlin on the South End (c) Ezra Sherwell

Passerine counts included one Whinchat, 73 Robins, one Lesser Whitethroat, three Blackcaps, a Yellow-browed Warbler, 11 Chiffchaffs, seven Goldcrests, a Spotted Flycatcher, 27 Rock Pipits, 22 Meadow Pipits, 16 Skylarks, ten Starlings, four Song Thrushes, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, one Flava Wagtail, three Grey Wagtails, two Chaffinches, one Goldfinch one Linnet and five Reed Buntings.

Marine mammal monitoring offshore recorded two Common Dolphins, while seal haul-outs tallied 93 Grey Seals and nine pups. Invertebrate and mammal records included three Red Admirals, two Silver Ys, one Rush Veneer, one Turnip, one White-shouldered House Moth, and a Wood Mouse.

Sunday, 11 October 2026

Today’s weather conditions presented calm and clear conditions with a gentle South-East wind blowing at Force 4, very good visibility, and a smooth sea state of one with no precipitation. Temperatures reached a mild 14°C.

Seabird movement and coastal counts included 12 Gannets, 26 Shags, seven Cormorants, 11 Kittiwakes, five Common Scoters, 22 Razorbills, nine Common Gulls, three Black-headed Gulls, and a Mediterranean Gull. Waders and coastal species were represented by 24 Curlews, three Whimbrels, three Turnstones, a Purple Sandpiper, one Ringed Plover, two Snipes and a Redshank. Raptors numbers featured two Peregrines, a Buzzard, a Merlin, and a Sparrowhawk.

Passage counts of passerines produced 119 Meadow Pipits, 32 Skylarks, 24 Alba Wagtails, 19 Rock Pipits, seven White Wagtails, four Grey Wagtails, two Pied Wagtails, 34 Chaffinches, 29 Goldfinches, 29 Linnets, 23 Siskins, five Lesser Redpolls, four Reed Buntings, one Swallow, 40 Carrion Crows, 46 Choughs, 21 Rooks and ten Jackdaws.

Other passerine counts on the island included two Greenfinches, 31 Robins, four Blackcaps, nine Chiffchaffs, seven Goldcrests, a Yellow-browed Warbler at Cristin, a Firecrest at Nant, three Song Thrushes, and a presumed freshly arrived Great Spotted Woodpecker first spotted on the mountain above Nant before dropping onto a fencepost on the Narrows and working its way up the Island via the Withies, Cristin and Ty Bach.

Yellow-browed Warbler caught and ringed at Cristin (c) Steven Stansfield

Marine mammal monitoring offshore recorded seven Common Dolphins off the South End. Grey seal counts around the island haul-outs tallied 51 at Henllwyn, ten at Solfach, and ten elsewhere at the South End, alongside seven pups. Invertebrate sightings included one Red Admiral.

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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.