By Thomas Weston
Today was a Tavern day for me, I had a meeting with Simon and the visiting researchers to the island which went really well and they had exciting plans ahead!
I started my Tavern break at midday and worked through the busy boat day. Simon was out sorting the boat, whilst Tara and Chloe were with a visiting ITV news crew. Jessie was looking for pups, with no success again today, and Emma and Greg were busy out and about in the field. It was exciting times for Tara and Chloe who helped in a Seal Disturbance piece for the news and after this, Simon helped with a piece about the Rat Eradication and the positive effects to our island and our wildlife too.
In my Tavern break, I was whisked up the West coast in a Landrover and walked towards the Manx Shearwater colony. I helped with the extra pieces for the Rat Eradication piece and it went really well. Our now celebrity chick was doing great, and with its parents being part of the 66' North piece a couple of months ago, it was great to get this chick its moment in the spotlight. The ITV piece came out the next day (29th), however, here are some stills.....
Introducing the Lundy Rat eradication piece
Me! Talking about Manx Shearwaters...
Helen talking from an RSPB perspective! A big success for our seabirds :)
Simon talking about the positive affects of the Rat eradication for the island.
By Jessie Dermody
Yesterday evening, five brave heros set out to retreive an old abandoned lobster pot, and rescue the crabs trapped inside. It proved to be much more difficult than we thought it would be, as the pot was stuck on the seabed. On the swim out to the pot, I counted a school of 16 Sea Bass. In the end, we dove down to tie ropes to the lobster pot, then used these and a tractor to pull it up onto the jetty. We snapped one rope in the process, and I almost drowned removing spider crabs from the drag path, as I managed to tangle myself up in the rope. Luckily, we and the crabs all made it out alive! We liberated 2 Brown Crabs, a very sad three legged Spider Crab, and an army of Spiny Squat Lobsters of varying size. The squat lobsters (coloquially known as squobsters) were very nice to see, as this species is quite elusive - despite their bright colouration. They love to wedge themselves into small crevices in deeper water, and they move very quickly whislt they are in the water. Generally, it is difficult to catch more than a quick glimpse of one unless you are scuba diving. There was a lot more life on the pot, including Dirty Sea Squirts, several Keel Worm species and plenty of Long - Clawed Porcelain Crabs. We didn't want to harm or remove the sessile life on the pot from the environment, so we cut out the parts that would trap anything else and returned the frame to the water as an artificial reef. Ideally, the pot would have been found before any bio-fouling had occured, but as it had already happened, we had to compromise.
A large Spiny Squat Lobster after being released from the lobster pot. Photo by Chloe Langmead
Today was a very exciting marine day - we had two snorkel safaris in the morning, followed by our first BRUV deployment from the islands new rib! The snorkel safaris went well, we saw a lot of Spiny Starfish, and plenty of Ballan Wrasse as usual! The snorkellers really enjoyed looking at the many Snakelocks Anemones on the seabed. The underwater scenery in the rocky reef is so beautiful in the sunlight.
A green Snakelocks Anemone. Photo by Jessie Dermody
After we'd dried off, we loaded the rib with the BRUV and its bait. My freind was visiting, filming for her Masters project, so she came along to film and conduct some interviews from the boat. We headed around the east side of the island, to quarry bay. There were no seals hauled out on the rocks, so we carefully approached until we were at 7 meters of depth. Chloe and I dropped the BRUV over the side of the boat, and we left it there for an hour. We had a little trip around the island whilst we waited. There were 5 Gannets following the thermal streams close to the boat, so we got some lovely veiws of them. There were also lots of Shags and Juvinile Seagulls on the water, and some Seals hunting in the water. My freind Abi interviewed Chloe and Tara about the BRUV, then we pulled it up and returned to shore.
Todays BRUV deployment team! Photo by Chloe Langmead.
This was our first BRUV deployment withinin the No-Take Zone around the island, where no fishing is allowed. Usually we deploy in the landing bay, which is more acessible, but is also an area that is fished recreationally. Immediately upon the camera entering the water today, it recorded an unidentified wrasse species. In the first five minutes of footage, and additional 4 Adult Pollack and a Female Cuckoo Wrasse were observed! In 35 minutes of footage, I observed 6 fish species including all five of the common wrasse species: 2 Ballan Wrasse, 1 Corkwing Wrasse, 1 Goldsinny Wrasse and 5 Rock Cook. This is a lot more activity than we have had in our previous deployments, which could be due to a number of factors - e.g. the site being in the centre of a kelp bed, or the lack of fishing here. At the moment, we would need to do more deployments to test this.
A large female cuckoo wrasse as seen by our BRUV
by Greg Lee
Wow! It was nice to wake up to a day with cloud and coolness in the air, following a very brief dosing of rain during the night, the first for many, many weeks. As it was still windy, census was understandably quieter with Willow Warblers just edging into double-figures across the entire duration of the patrol. However, the overcast skies made seawatching quite tempting with Manx Shearwaters clearly skimming over the waves, though I was desperately hoping some of the larger Shearwaters being reported off the Cornish coast would come into view. As I walked down the Beach road, I noted a few young gulls in the water, mostly Herring Gulls, but one particular bird seemed to be enjoying doing aerobatics, flying up and rapidly diving down. As I quite enjoy a bit of Gull photography, particularly young gulls with all the patterning to their plumage, I decided to snap some photographs when I became acutely aware of this bird having a striking white upper tail with a neat black tailband, quite unlike any Herring Gull at this age. Looking at the head, there was also a distinctive shawl along with a clean belly and axillaries on the underwing. Realising as many photos as possible was a good thing, I identified that this bird was a Caspian Gull, just the 2nd record on Lundy, after Thomas and Eleanor spotting the first in early spring, of this increasing species in the UK. As it was still quite fresh moulting to 1st-winter plumage, the head wasn’t as pale and standout as it will be over winter, but certainly it was still distinctive enough to catch the eye. All that time spent looking and sifting through winter gull flocks on various estuaries, rubbish dumps and even freshwater areas has certainly paid off this time.
Caspian Gull underside by G.Lee
Caspian Gull by G.Lee
The rest of the walk was quite quiet with the low cloud making for quite a different feeling compared to the glorious sunny weather the island had experienced over the past month or so. Butterflies were much reduced with Painted Ladies leading the charge with just seven individuals during my walk. The Linnet flocks remain impressive, whilst like clockwork, every time I reach Quarter Wall gate on census, my warm mammalian blood seems to always attract the attention of Horseflies. Fortunately, as they are used to biting large livestock such as Cows and Horses, they aren’t quite used to their victims being armed with hands that can cover almost the entirety of their body, therefore they can be swatted away very easily. I believe this particular species of Horsefly is Notch-horned Cleg (Haematopota pluvialis), however I’m open to suggestions of other species. Although they are trying to saw at my flesh, I do find the striking pattern of the eyes quite beautiful, though this is appreciated only quickly before my blood is drawn.
The rest of the day was spent in a horsefly free environment with lots of seabird data needing compiling and entering now the season has finished. Notably, I was on Kittiwakes which sadly saw the Aztec birds being plundered very quickly by other avian predators. However, in better news, lots of young Kittiwakes are now fledgling and swirling safely in Jenny’s Cove!
In the evening, members of the Conservation Team went out to catch some Wheatears. With the full moon, it was a harder ordeal, but we were treated to some beautiful noctilucent clouds drifting over from the high Arctic. Three Wheatears were caught though, one being new and the others being re-traps from previous sessions. There does seem to have been a reduction in Wheatear numbers recently, are the juveniles leaving the island already?!
Lundy map - click to enlarge