Back on Bardsey!

Well, I am immensely happy to say that Rachel and I have made it back home to Bardsey Island! After a ten hour train journey from Cornwall to North Wales on Tuesday, we took the gamble of travelling down to the Lleyn on Wednesday morning, despite the howling winds which had been blowing all night. Thankfully, the wind calmed down enough to allow the large swell to settle down (somewhat!!), and allow Colin to make a dash for it with us on board. It was a bouncy crossing, but not too bad, and we made it to Enlli midday. 

It has been a brilliant first term at Uni, but it is very nice to be back home for Christmas. Having a quick scout around the island has revealed the usual hive of activity on the rotting kelp piles on Solfach: some 35 Choughs, 450 Starlings, 45 Rock Pipits, a Hooded Crow and much more are making use of the bounty of invertebrates dwelling in the seaweed. A walk around the coast yesterday saw singles of Whimbrel and Merlin present, and an impressive haul-out of some 170 Grey Seals on one of the beaches. Today (12th) has been pretty grim weather-wise, but I struggled around The Narrows at high tide and recorded some 40 Curlews, a Whimbrel, 58 Oystercatchers, six Purple Sandpipers, 13 Turnstones, 11 Redshanks and a Black-tailed Godwit trying to find shelter in various spots.

Back on Bardsey! Pleased to be home

There are a lot of Grey Seals around the coast, mostly concentrated onto a small strip of a beach on the Narrows. Over 150 were there yesterday

This pioneering Grey Seal pup has decided to escape the effects of the wind and waves by taking up residence behind this small boulder on the Narrows. It is in the process of moulting out of its fluffy coat, so looks like a badly-sheared Sheep!

It s great to see Choughs up close again, with a feeding flock of about 35 on Solfach

A flock of about 450 Starlings are feeding on the beach too- I am hoping to get the Heligoland trap up and capture a few in the next few weeks

Photographic Advent Calendar, Day 3: Grey Seals

Day three of the Wildlife Photography advent series leading up to Christmas features some slightly larger mammals than the previous two posts. I have decided to focus on Grey Seals in for this blog post...

Grey Seals (Halichoerus grypus) are a species that is well distributed throughout the UK, where it occurs as the country's largest seal species: bulls can weigh up to 350kg, compared to just 200kg in female 'cows'. This is still substantially more bulky than the smaller, puppy-faced Common Seal, which occurs more on the east coast of the UK. It is estimated that over half the World's population of Grey Seals live in the waters surrounding the UK, where populations hover around 150,000 and over 90% of these occur in Scotland! Focussing back to the Lleyn Peninsula and Bardsey in particular, we tend to have a wintering population of around 150, and evidence suggests that there is frequent commuting between our population and that of the Wirral haul-outs, just up the coast.

Here are a handful of images of these superb animals, which are especially amazing when encountered below the surface of the sea...

Underwater photography - Lumix FT-5

I have recently acquired a new piece of photographic kit, namely the Lumix FT-5. I bought this compact little camera to try out a bit of underwater photography, admittedly at a fairly low quality, but a progression from GoPro stills from movies nonetheless. Unfortunately the weather has not played ball for the last couple of weeks, meaning murky seas, strong winds, cloudy skies and therefore very little opportunity for taking to the seas. I have managed to get out a few times to try the great little camera out, and I have to say that I am very impressed with its capabilities. The macro is a great function, allowing very close range for small fish and other subjects, whilst the ease of use underwater and quality of images is great. I look forward to using this camera lot more in the coming weeks. Here is a small selection of images for now:

A species of Goby, which I am not entirely sure of yet

Grey Seal encounters! A female above and male (below) came to investigate me whilst I was snorkelling

Two-spotted Gobies (Gobiusculus flavescens)

It was cool to swim amongst this shoal of several hundred White Bait one afternoon- I tried to get below the shoal to get some silhouetted images

a species of Periwinkle I believe

It has been a lovely couple of days on the island, although the weather today was just stunning: very low winds from the east, clear blue skies, a slight chill to the air and excellent visibility. It is clear that the snowfall on the mainland has already started pushing waders and thrushes West in search of soft ground to feed on. This was evident with a moderate increase in thrush numbers over the last few days: 16 Blackbirds, two Fieldfares, 11 Song Thrushes and three Redwings were present today. Birding was very enjoyable today, with a nice selection of noteworthy species on show, including Red-throated Diver, Great Northern Diver, Mediterranean Gull, Jack Snipe and Sparrowhawk.

The stunning lighting this morning made for some nice photographs. I focussed in particularly on a juvenile Shag in Cafn, which was very approachable. As it swam back and forth across the small channel, it provided many different opportunities for images- experimenting with the different angles for lighting  was quite fun. Some of the results are below.

This will be the last post I will make from Bardsey Island for the next two months or so, as I will be leaving the island tomorrow and heading off to Ecuador in a week. I will be volunteering at a bird lodge in the north-western part of the country. I hope to update the blog with a few posts whilst I'm out there, so watch this space.

A mix of lichen species on a rock at the North end of the island

A small mushroom amongst some moss

This juvenile Shag could well be the smae individual featured in my previous post. It is an  unusually tame individual, which could perhaps meant that it is weak and unable to find enough food. It provided some good photographic opportunities just after sunrise this morning

Grey Seal bull in the early morning light

Stonechats: female in top two images, and male in bottom two