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...

Grey Seal Pup

For about two weeks now, a small Grey Seal pup has taken up residence on Solfach. Usually, Grey Seals don't stay long on this beach, because it tends to get quite a lot of disturbance. At this time of year, however, there are almost no people on the island, besides ourselves.
This seal pup has taken a great interest in my hide, and everything associated with it (wooden stakes in the sand, guy cords etc.). It has spent a large proportion of its time 'playing' and hauling out right next to my hide. This has given me a good opportunity to get some very close up images from within my hide. By using a fish eye lens and poking it out of the bottom, I have been able to get extremely close to the pup. In fact, the pup is so curious that on several occasions it has almost forced its way into the hide, and I have had to clean my lens several times after the pup has smudged its nose across the centre of the lens. I have also taken the opportunity of this tame pup to get some other images, particularly back-lit with the setting sun.

A couple of my favourite close-ups (more further down)

Back-lighting with the setting sun works really well with seals, and especially with tame pups such as this one

A selection of extreme close-ups: