Gannets
Sunday, 24 August 2014
Not a great week for birds
Been a funny week for birds really. Strong winds have prevented us from opening all of our 30 nets most days, whilst a general lack of birds has also meant reduced catches.
As we feared, the week was not helped by having two elderly ladies stay, who had given every indication that they were experienced at how to extract birds from the mist nets. The first morning with them made us quickly realise that this was not the case!! Not only did they struggle with finding out which side of the net the birds had entered from, one of them could not identify a Blackbird from 1 foot away!!!
Coupled with their generally poor idenification skills was their ability to act like what they were - retired school teachers!! We have expected to get marks out of 10 at the end of the week! Some funny moments with them though - trying to get one of them to understand the principles of getting change when paying for the accomodation was like a 1980's comedy sketch; money passing backwards and forwards as they argued with each other about it!!
Saving the best until last, when they left on Friday they headed off to West Harbour for the 0930 ferry, which was in East Harbour, a whole 300m away!! Luckily Monica and Tore who crew the ferry noticed and Tore nipped over the fetch them:
Tore: 'The ferry is in East Harbour'
Elderly lady: 'How would you know that!!!'
Tore: 'Because I'm driving it!!'
Despite some poor numbers of birds we have noticed the start of the autumn movement of species such as Blackcap, Garden Warbler and Willow Warbler, as well as catching a couple more Tree Pipit. Yellow Wagtail have started to move through also and we caught one which we gave to Monica to ring, as she had never done one, in fact it was only the 19th ever ringed here since ringing started in 1978, and two of those were caught by us last year.
On the subject of Monica, she has started her new job on the ferry and when she is on her week at work she stays here at the Obs with us. A very happy lady and much less stress than her previous job - congratulations, a great result!!!
Kay has been out and about taking some pictures of a few of the many pieces of artwork that are on the island - pictures below. This afternoon went fishing on the rocks behind the Obs, a terribly long way to go fishing - about 300m. Caught a cod and Kay got a short-spined scorpion fish - lovely looking thing.
Finally, is anyone able to identify this catapillar????
As we feared, the week was not helped by having two elderly ladies stay, who had given every indication that they were experienced at how to extract birds from the mist nets. The first morning with them made us quickly realise that this was not the case!! Not only did they struggle with finding out which side of the net the birds had entered from, one of them could not identify a Blackbird from 1 foot away!!!
Coupled with their generally poor idenification skills was their ability to act like what they were - retired school teachers!! We have expected to get marks out of 10 at the end of the week! Some funny moments with them though - trying to get one of them to understand the principles of getting change when paying for the accomodation was like a 1980's comedy sketch; money passing backwards and forwards as they argued with each other about it!!
Saving the best until last, when they left on Friday they headed off to West Harbour for the 0930 ferry, which was in East Harbour, a whole 300m away!! Luckily Monica and Tore who crew the ferry noticed and Tore nipped over the fetch them:
Tore: 'The ferry is in East Harbour'
Elderly lady: 'How would you know that!!!'
Tore: 'Because I'm driving it!!'
Despite some poor numbers of birds we have noticed the start of the autumn movement of species such as Blackcap, Garden Warbler and Willow Warbler, as well as catching a couple more Tree Pipit. Yellow Wagtail have started to move through also and we caught one which we gave to Monica to ring, as she had never done one, in fact it was only the 19th ever ringed here since ringing started in 1978, and two of those were caught by us last year.
On the subject of Monica, she has started her new job on the ferry and when she is on her week at work she stays here at the Obs with us. A very happy lady and much less stress than her previous job - congratulations, a great result!!!
Kay has been out and about taking some pictures of a few of the many pieces of artwork that are on the island - pictures below. This afternoon went fishing on the rocks behind the Obs, a terribly long way to go fishing - about 300m. Caught a cod and Kay got a short-spined scorpion fish - lovely looking thing.
Finally, is anyone able to identify this catapillar????
A poor week for ringing, but here are the totals for week-ending 24th August 2014
| w/e24th Aug | ||||
| Species | As at 17th | Kay | Chris | Total |
| Barred Warbler | 3 | 3 | ||
| Blackbird | 48 | 3 | 3 | 54 |
| Blackcap | 11 | 12 | 3 | 26 |
| Blue Tit | 17 | 17 | ||
| Blyth's Reed Warbler | 1 | 1 | ||
| Chaffinch | 9 | 9 | ||
| Common Rosefinch | 6 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
| Dunnock | 1 | 1 | ||
| Fieldfare | 8 | 8 | ||
| Garden Warbler | 24 | 4 | 3 | 31 |
| Goldcrest | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| Goldfinch | 2 | 2 | ||
| Great Tit | 24 | 24 | ||
| Greenfinch | 135 | 11 | 9 | 155 |
| Greenish Warbler | 2 | 2 | ||
| House Sparrow | 1 | 1 | ||
| Icterine Warbler | 43 | 43 | ||
| Lesser Spotted Woodpecker | 1 | 1 | ||
| Lesser Whitethroat | 126 | 15 | 3 | 144 |
| Marsh Tit | 4 | 4 | ||
| Marsh Warbler | 2 | 2 | ||
| Nuthatch | 2 | 2 | ||
| Pied Flycatcher | 8 | 3 | 11 | |
| Red-backed Shrike | 52 | 5 | 3 | 60 |
| Red-breasted Flycatcher | 2 | 2 | ||
| Redstart | 18 | 18 | ||
| Reed Warbler | 6 | 6 | ||
| Robin | 20 | 1 | 21 | |
| Song Thrush | 7 | 1 | 8 | |
| Spotted Flycatcher | 10 | 10 | ||
| Swallow | 49 | 49 | ||
| Thrush Nightingale | 16 | 16 | ||
| Tree Pipit | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Tree Sparrow | 29 | 4 | 1 | 34 |
| Treecreeper | 3 | 3 | ||
| Wheatear | 4 | 4 | ||
| White Wagtail | 31 | 1 | 32 | |
| Whitethroat | 63 | 4 | 4 | 71 |
| Willow Warbler | 71 | 24 | 5 | 100 |
| Wryneck | 1 | 1 | ||
| Wood Warbler | 6 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
| Wren | 3 | 3 | ||
| Yellowhammer | 15 | 3 | 18 | |
| Total | 886 | 95 | 40 | 1021 |
Monday, 18 August 2014
Weekly summary week ending 17th August 2014
It has been a funny old week. From a birding point of view it was relatively quiet, with only 155 new birds caught. That being said we did catch plenty of Red-backed Shrike - 13 in one day! Plenty of bleeding fingers for both of us.
Highlight of the week was our friends Steve and Netty from back home coming to see us. They arrived on Tuesday and left on Sunday, having a great time while they were here. They helped us with going round the nets to get birds and we managed to show them several species they had never seen before including: Red-backed Shrike, Lesser Whitethroat, Barred Warbler, Thrush Nightingale and Pied Flycatcher. Perfect timing meant that they saw the first few White-tailed Eagles of the autumn start to pass the Island, four on one day, with Steve flushing one from low trees on the road when he was out jogging; it looked huge as it flew along the road, almost spanning the track, a truly memorable Landsort experience!!
Apart from seeing birds in the hand and some walks, Tore came up trumps and took the four of us up the lighthouse and then out on the pilot boat to drop one pilot at one boat and pick another up from a second. I don't think Steve stopped grinning for the whole trip! He and Chris also went fishing off the rocks, more in hope than expectation, but surprisingly we caught four Cod and a Herring (well Chris caught three Cod and a Herring and Steve caught a Cod!!). The Cod made great fishcakes. Picking wild Raspberries and Goosberries all helped to give a real Swedish feel to their trip. Although we would never admit this publically, we were delighted to have them stay and miss them
After they left Tore offered Kay and I another pilot trip, but this one was even more special - out to the Royal Princess, fourth largest cruise liner in the world and over 70m above sea level to the top. Once again Tore makes coming alongside such a massive vessel look effortless!
Sunday saw the arrival of a party of young children for a guided trip. A real pleasure to show them all that is done here on Landsort and to let them see some of the birds up close. Less easy to deal with are a couple of elderly ladies who are out here as 'volunteers' but in truth are a bit of a waste of space. Can't identify Blackbirds, common warblers etc, do not know how to extract birds and are slow and unsteady over the rocks. The language barrier does not help either. They are here until Saturday and for the first time ever since we arrived I am hoping the weather stops us catching birds - that's not right!!!
Another trip on the Pilot boat - this time to the Royal Princess
70m high and carrying 4000 passengers!!
Make that 3999 passengers
Some pictures from our time with Steve and Netty
Flying proudly under a thundery sky
Adult White-tailed Eagle
Pilot boat ready to receive the Manx
A happy Steve!!!!!
Macro Wasp (pronounced as it is spelt!!)
The village from the lighthouse with the Manx flag in distance
Running totals of birds ringed since mid-July 2014
| w/e17th Aug | ||||
| Species | As at 10th | Kay | Chris | Total |
| Barred Warbler | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Blackbird | 43 | 2 | 3 | 48 |
| Blackcap | 7 | 2 | 2 | 11 |
| Blue Tit | 17 | 17 | ||
| Blyth's Reed Warbler | 1 | 1 | ||
| Chaffinch | 8 | 1 | 9 | |
| Common Rosefinch | 5 | 1 | 6 | |
| Dunnock | 1 | 1 | ||
| Fieldfare | 8 | 8 | ||
| Garden Warbler | 18 | 6 | 24 | |
| Goldcrest | 1 | 1 | ||
| Goldfinch | 2 | 2 | ||
| Great Tit | 21 | 2 | 1 | 24 |
| Greenfinch | 107 | 20 | 8 | 135 |
| Greenish Warbler | 2 | 2 | ||
| House Sparrow | 1 | 1 | ||
| Icterine Warbler | 43 | 43 | ||
| Lesser Spotted Woodpecker | 1 | 1 | ||
| Lesser Whitethroat | 94 | 24 | 8 | 126 |
| Marsh Tit | 4 | 4 | ||
| Marsh Warbler | 2 | 2 | ||
| Nuthatch | 2 | 2 | ||
| Pied Flycatcher | 4 | 4 | 8 | |
| Red-backed Shrike | 30 | 20 | 2 | 52 |
| Red-breasted Flycatcher | 2 | 2 | ||
| Redstart | 16 | 1 | 1 | 18 |
| Reed Warbler | 6 | 6 | ||
| Robin | 17 | 2 | 1 | 20 |
| Song Thrush | 7 | 7 | ||
| Spotted Flycatcher | 8 | 2 | 10 | |
| Swallow | 49 | 49 | ||
| Thrush Nightingale | 10 | 3 | 3 | 16 |
| Tree Pipit | 1 | 1 | ||
| Tree Sparrow | 29 | 29 | ||
| Treecreeper | 3 | 3 | ||
| Wheatear | 4 | 4 | ||
| White Wagtail | 31 | 31 | ||
| Whitethroat | 50 | 12 | 1 | 63 |
| Willow Warbler | 57 | 11 | 3 | 71 |
| Wryneck | 1 | 1 | ||
| Wood Warbler | 5 | 1 | 6 | |
| Wren | 3 | 3 | ||
| Yellowhammer | 10 | 4 | 1 | 15 |
| Total | 731 | 119 | 36 | 886 |
Sunday, 10 August 2014
We have been seeing on facebook and manx.net that the Isle of Man has had a visit from a most impressive Viking ship. Here on Landsort we have also had a Viking visit, albeit on a smaller scale. A ten-man (well 8 and 2 women!) boat put into the cove at the back of our house this week on their way to Gotland. Sheltering out a rough sea, they happended to lie-up in an historically used refuge where an ancient compass-rose is carved into the rocks.
Although a quieter week in some ways as we have caught fewer birds, it has been a good week. A trip out with Tore in his boat to the Inner and Ytrre Karvasen isles to the South-east of Landsort produced some good birds; two sea-eagles on Inner and a number of waders on Ytrre (Outer), including Spotted and Common Redhsank, Dunlin, Sanderling, Common Sandpiper and Turnstone, all busy feeding on the rocks or in the shallows. More of a surprise, given the total lack of any trees or vegetation on the island were a Wood Warbler, busy catching flies among the rocks and a male Red-backed Shrike sitting on the rocks looking a bit lost! Thanks Tore for a great afternoon out and for the pics of some of the birds, which are shown below.
Also, this weekend several of the Observatories members came out to visit and very kindly invited us to join them for a crayfish party, which included Schnapps!! A great evening of good food and lovely company - thanks folks!!! We were able to partially repay their kindness by offering round some sloe-gin, made by ourselves last winter from sloes picked on Landsort. Looks like a good crop this year as well!!
Fewer birds caught this week, just 133, but some good species, including a couple of Marsh Warbler, a nice adult Nuthatch, 14 Red-backed Shrike and three Wood Warbler. Today it feels like the weather has at last changed, a bit cooler and less humid. It is likely that migration will now start for most species and today a few raptors were seen passing though, including two Common Buzzard. Tomorrow we may get a couple of hours work in before rain arrives at 7am, then it is off to 'the mainland' for Kay while Chris does some work on Manx birds.
Kay took delivery of her new Macro lens this week and has been busy trying it out on moths, butterflies and birds. Check out some of the pics below.
Kay took delivery of her new Macro lens this week and has been busy trying it out on moths, butterflies and birds. Check out some of the pics below.
Cheers to the Isle of Man and the recent Viking visitors to Peel!
A well-earned G&T!
Our own, smaller scale, Viking visitor
Kay has been practicing with her new Macro Lens
Brimstone Butterfly
Gold Spot moth
Can anyone name this one?
Greyling Butterfly
A few of the birds we caught this week
Nuthatch
A Nuthatch, not drilling your fingers!
A fiesty juvenile Red-backed Shrike
Reed Warbler
Wood Warbler
Ytrre Karvasen
Dunlin and Sanderling feeding on the rocks
Spotted Redshank, starting to moult out of breeding plumage
Tore's boat out on Ytrre Karvasen
Ringing totals for the week- a quiet week but some good birds!
| w/e10th Aug | ||||
| Species | As at 3rd | Kay | Chris | Total |
| Barred Warbler | 2 | 2 | ||
| Blackbird | 34 | 8 | 1 | 43 |
| Blackcap | 6 | 1 | 7 | |
| Blue Tit | 17 | 17 | ||
| Blyth's Reed Warbler | 1 | 1 | ||
| Chaffinch | 7 | 1 | 8 | |
| Common Rosefinch | 5 | 5 | ||
| Dunnock | 1 | 1 | ||
| Fieldfare | 8 | 8 | ||
| Garden Warbler | 9 | 9 | 18 | |
| Goldfinch | 2 | 2 | ||
| Great Tit | 19 | 1 | 1 | 21 |
| Greenfinch | 87 | 13 | 7 | 107 |
| Greenish Warbler | 2 | 2 | ||
| House Sparrow | 1 | 1 | ||
| Icterine Warbler | 38 | 3 | 2 | 43 |
| Lesser Spotted Woodpecker | 1 | 1 | ||
| Lesser Whitethroat | 76 | 13 | 5 | 94 |
| Marsh Tit | 4 | 4 | ||
| Marsh Warbler | 0 | 2 | 2 | |
| Nuthatch | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Pied Flycatcher | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Red-backed Shrike | 16 | 12 | 2 | 30 |
| Red-breasted Flycatcher | 2 | 2 | ||
| Redstart | 15 | 1 | 16 | |
| Reed Warbler | 5 | 1 | 6 | |
| Robin | 15 | 2 | 17 | |
| Song Thrush | 6 | 1 | 7 | |
| Spotted Flycatcher | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 |
| Swallow | 49 | 49 | ||
| Thrush Nightingale | 9 | 1 | 10 | |
| Tree Sparrow | 26 | 3 | 29 | |
| Treecreeper | 3 | 3 | ||
| Wheatear | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| White Wagtail | 26 | 4 | 1 | 31 |
| Whitethroat | 39 | 6 | 5 | 50 |
| Willow Warbler | 47 | 4 | 6 | 57 |
| Wryneck | 1 | 1 | ||
| Wood Warbler | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| Wren | 3 | 3 | ||
| Yellowhammer | 5 | 5 | 10 | |
| Total | 598 | 96 | 37 | 731 |
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