Bardsey's Wildlife

Tuesday, 7 April 2020

A welcome calm and sunny day today, this meant that the nets could be opened at both Cristin and Nant. It was a fairly productive ringing session, although not hectic, there was a steady trickle of birds from 06:30 until around 11:00 when the nets were closed. One nice surprise was a female Bullfinch caught at Cristin, a reasonably scarce bird on Bardsey, but a male was also present at Nant today.

Female Bullfinch, they are common, but still one the oddest British finches

As well as the Bullfinch, it was clear there had been a small arrival of migrants, with nine Blackcaps being caught along with eight Willow Warblers,

In the afternoon the assistant wardens set off to visit the East Side and monitor the Chough pairs that nest in rather inaccessible crags and cliffs close to the sea. Several pairs were sighted and all the colour-rings were read using cameras with zoom lenses. So far all of the pairs sighted have remained with the partners that they were with last year.

A Chough pair near their nest

Oddly, there were very few Razorbills and Guillemots on the East Side. Usually, numbers of these species are in the thousands, especially when they are flushed from their ledges and boulders, today they simply weren't there, with only a handful present.

Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, on the other hand, were all too present! In order to monitor anything on the East Side requires you to walk straight through the colony and they (unsurprisingly) don't appreciate human company very much. This means that the sound of angry gulls is pretty much constant during any visit to the East Side!

Thankfully, the Bardsey population of Herring Gulls is fairly stable. Quite fortunate for this species that has experienced severe long-term declines across Britain and Europe, despite what the newspapers may lead you to believe!

Lesser Black-backed Gull, this species prefers to nest on the grassy slopes on the East Side, leaving the Herring Gulls on the flatter rocks.

After enjoying the East Side for a while, taking in the slightly less familiar view from the other side of the mountain and listening to the singing Wheatears and Rock Pipits, it was time to head back to the obs.

a territorial Wheatear on the East Side

We walked over the mountain to get back as it's a more direct route, and we happened to see Mari, one the Trust Wardens who was on a walk up there. We started walking down the mountain together when an uncharacteristically silent Skylark flew up in front of us. After searching for a short while it gave quite decent views...

A Skylark at the top of the mountain in the golden, fading light

Other sightings today include: six Coal Tits, four Great Tits, one Blue Tit, one Grasshopper Warbler, two Lesser Redpolls, three Redwings, c400 Herring Gulls, c150 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and c90 Kittiwakes.

Ringing totals today (re-traps in brackets): Song Thrush 1, Chiffchaff 9, Willow Warbler 14, Goldcrest 2 (1), Blackcap 12, Goldfinch 2, Bullfinch 1, Coal Tit 1 and Wren (1) - 44 birds of nine species, 42 new and two re-traps

Moths today: Hebrew Character 1, Red Chestnut 1

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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, 7 April 2020

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