By Chloë Langmead
Today started with a butterfly transect along the lower east path. The hot, sunny weather has bought the butterfly’s out in full force! There were Large Whites, Small Whites and Peacocks flitting around Milcombe, Red Admirals and Painted Lady’s throughout the walk in healthy numbers. I counted 8 Ringlets and of course there were 90 Meadow Browns! Additionally, there were a few Hummingbird Hawk Moths and several Silver Y’s.
Meanwhile, Greg was out on census with the highlights being 29 Willow Warblers, 6 Sedge Warblers and 2 Grasshopper Warblers. Additionally, he also saw a migrant Hawker Dragonfly near Millcombe Pines.
Next on the agenda for me was Seabird Station at Jenny's Cove. The sun was shining birght, and Jenny’s looked beautiful as always, with the ocean looking particularly inviting in this hot weather. Thankfully there was a gentle, cool breeze to keep me from baking too much! Despite most of the Auks having left with the Guillemot cliffs looking stark, there were still just enough Puffins out rafting on the water to show the day trippers, all of whom were pleasantly surprised and happy!
By Lucile Doyen
A Wheatear juvenile by Lucile
For Emma, Jessie, Thomas and I, this week started by a nice little tour on a designated path, which would hopefully allow us to meet some young Wheatears (Oenanthe oenanthe). The little expedition took place at dusk and would end on early Monday, just after midnight. Thomas was leading with a thermal camera, through which he detected the birds sleeping on the path before catching them with a net. Out of 14 birds seen, 9 were successfully trapped and ringed! We first measured the tarsus width of each individual to recognize the subspecies and ensure fitting the correct ring size : the british subspecies would take a smaller (A) ring than the greenland one (B sized ring). Wheaters are a very interesting species : they have a complete ossification of the skull in only two months, which usually take around 6 months in juvenile passerines (Svensson, L., 1992)1.
1Identification Guide to European Passerines. Lars Svensson. British Trust for Ornithology.
Later in the morning, I monitored the last active brood of our House sparrows (Passer domesticus). This is the second brood of a couple of one year old sparrows, which re-used the outstanding nest they made for their first brood. This may have allowed them to save some time, and the time interval between their two broods was 7 days (with a mean of 12.75 days for our population, s.d. = 4.34). This was a rather little brood of 2 chicks, one of them being unfortunately half the weight of the other when weighed at 5 days old. At ten days old, the imbalance in food intake between the two siblings got the better of this little chick. Life can be rough, but it is also beautiful : All nestlings from first broods made it, and we got a good survival of 72.7% in our second broods, with a population now estimated to 73 House sparrows! This is a real pleasure to see them around, way more numerous than at the beginning of the breeding season.
Painted Lady by Lucile
In the afternoon, I walked along the east coast. I started the promenade by following butterflies: mostly Red admirals (Vanessa atalanta), Painted ladies (Vanessa cardui) and Meadow browns (Maniola jurtina).
Pied Wagtail by Lucile
Linnet by Lucile
On the first tree, 3 Pied Wagtails (Motacilla alba) and a Linnet (Linaria cannabina) have found shelter on the trees [can insert image 4 and image 5]. Adult and juvenile Stonechats were flying around, landing on fences and bracken. A lot of migrant Willow warblers halted on the island, and I could see ten of them hiding on the vegetation just around the goldfish’ pond.
MeadowPipit by Lucile
The promenade led by butterflies ended with one of them being caught by a Meadow pipit for the goûter.
The day ended up with a Wingspan game, a board game where players collect bird cards, eggs, resources, and try to get the best score out of this. I teamed with Chloé, and playing a Ring-billed gull and a Bald eagle led us to victory! We hope the former arrives on the island this autumn.
By Thomas Weston
A Bird Day with nice fine weather again, but today a cool breeze in the air which was nice and refreshing, even a little cold at points.
A 5am start and I walked down to Millcombe where I opened a couple of nets and sat waiting. The birds were quite quiet to begin but gained in activity soon after 6am when I began to catch a few individuals. There were Goldfinches and Linnets in the bushes and the sounds of a couple of Willow Warblers. A couple of Peregrines were searching for any highflying migrants, so everything stayed low and in the bushes for the next hour. Lucile joined just before 7am, and this coincided with the Willow Warbler wave. A Lundy phenomenon whereby Willow Warblers start to descend in the valley and pass from top to bottom in a wave. The flocks can vary between a couple to 10 and the next round we caught the next 3 birds, followed by a round of 10 and so on... The wave was quite late today and arrived about 07:30, the other day it was at 06:00. This is something we are intruiged by, do they spend the night on the island and then head off SE? Do they fly in and drop out the sky onto the island at dawn, find each other and head SE? The majority were new and juveniles, with yet again two retraps being adult birds. One was ringed on Friday and the other ringed last year which was very nice!
A reminder to stay cool in the heat! Thomas Weston
Eleanor joined and it was going well with the Lundy breeding adult female and her young Spotted Flycatcher caught and ringed, another two Lundy born Blackcaps, more Wrens(!), and a couple more Linnets too. We decided to pack up and undertake a little later start time to census, this was good and included multiple heard only records of the Great Spotted Woodpecker in the Valley. We believe it to be a different bird to the one last week but we are certainly not sure as it sounds the same and I have not seen it well yet. There were birds in bushes but not much out to sea. Benjamin's Chair held a feeding frenzy of Gannets, and Manx Shearwaters, a Sand Martin overhead, but overall it was quite calm out on the water. Passing through the Airfield and over to Quarry Cottages, there were flocks of Linnets, small flocks of Wheatears, and a nice mix of breeding Meadow Pipits seen. Pushing it for time getting back into the Village before 11am but a few flocks of Starlings and House Sparrows later we made it back in time.
Manx Shearwater chick! Our youngest of the box birds...
Manx box checks after saw the smallest of the chicks becoming a lot bigger now and the biggest gaining weight quick!
An afternoon of admin was to be whilst Tara, Jessie, Chloe were out and about searching for any early Seal pups. Meanwhile Eleanor was in the Tavern but got some much needed time outside and Lucile was keen to catch some Starlings and House Sparrows but alas no success today.
Lundy map - click to enlarge