New LTV Ed joins the team

Hello, my name is Ed, I am one of the new long-term volunteers (LTVs) here on Skomer Island.

Ed enjoying the sunshine at North Haven

So, a bit about me: I first visited Skomer back in 2015 as a day visitor and fell in love with the place, especially as this was my first-time seeing puffins! 2 years later when I was 16, I came out for my first stint as a weekly volunteer. In that first week I gained a great deal of experience and have fond memories of weighing Manx shearwater chicks and watching my first ever storm petrels return to their nest holes in North Haven. I guess it was no surprise then that I booked to return the following year and have now ended up being a weekly volunteer on 4 occasions. However, it was last year when I came as a volunteer for 4 weeks to help with seal monitoring that I gained my first proper experience of island life, being one of only 4 people on the island. With no visitors, my time as an LTV was a bit different and I felt fortunate to be able to return this year to experience the island in a more ‘normal’ year.

I originally come from Worcestershire but for the last 3 years I have been living in Bangor where I have just finished studying zoology with conservation. During my time at university, I played an active role in the hockey team as well as being part of the ornithological society. Geographically Bangor is in a great location, and I spent much of my time either hiking in the mountains or visiting the beach. I am also a trainee bird ringer and being in Bangor has given me the opportunity to ring a range of exciting species from waders to duck to seabirds.

 

Me seemingly looking happy and confused towards a razorbill chick whilst seabird ringing on Bardsey

One of the main things that first brought me to the island some 6 years ago was its incredible wildlife and this is definitely a reason I keep coming back. In only a fortnight here I have been treated to a wide range of incredible wildlife, such as regular short-eared owls, common dolphins, dark-green fritillary butterflies and common lizards to name but a few. Though I have a keen interest in all aspects of natural history, birds are definitely the thing that started it all off and are still probably my main interest. During my first 2 weeks the birdlife has started to change with many of the breeding birds now beginning to leave. However, this has meant that the first autumn migrants have started to pass through which have included a knot, green sandpipers, swifts, willow warblers and a marsh harrier. This is an exciting time as birds come and go, with the excitement of not knowing what might appear next.

A juvenile cuckoo was one of the birding highlights of the first week

A couple of reed warblers have been seen passing through the island as they migrate south for winter including this rather showy one feeding in the farm garden

The first 2 weeks seem to have flown by and only by looking back have I realised how busy I have actually been. The wide range in tasks have certainly made volunteering so far extremely varied and interesting, these have included fixing a board walk, giving welcome talks, collecting gas from the mainland, clearing rosebay willowherb, gull chick ringing, scything back paths, weighing Manx shearwater chicks, and wildlife surveys.   

Whilst volunteering here on Skomer all LTVs are encouraged to run their own project which can be done on anything of their interest. I decided to do mine on moths and run regular moth traps at the farm as well as portable traps around the island to record and monitor the species present on Skomer. I started this last Sunday during the heatwave we were having and put a MV Skinner trap out in the farm garden. This is the brightest trap the Wildlife Trust has here on Skomer and turned out to be a slightly bad idea when I woke at sunrise to hundreds of moths coating the trap, floor and nearby walls! After 3 hours of trying to get my identification skills back up to scratch, I finished with a total 1954 moths of 105 species! This included a range of stunning colourful moths however the highlight has to be a first for the island in the form of a sharp-angled peacock which unfortunately flew before a photo could be obtained.

Since then, I have been running traps quite regularly around the farm, after such a big first catch I then decided to use the dimmer actinic trap (a less bright bluer bulb which has been found to be more attractive to different species). This worked well catching a more manageable 868 moths of 67 species. However, after getting my identification skills back up to scratch and maybe becoming overconfident, I then decided to reuse the brighter MV trap a few nights later resulting in an incredible 2376 moths of 95 species including a whopping 1380 Rustics/Uncertains (2 species very difficult to distinguish). 

Dark sword grass is an immigrant moth that has been recorded regularly on the island recently probably due to warm southerly winds

The unusually named and shaped shark moth was one of the recent highlights especially being my first ever!

I have continued to run moth traps when I can, and these have been extremely successful so far with an overall total of 7034 moths of 155 species identified, including 3 new species for the island as well as many species that are rare or declining across the rest of the UK. I shall continue to trap regularly throughout my stay and will update you later on how the rest of the season goes.