A guest blog from two volunteers; Mike and Ted Wallen who count Lesser Black-backed Gulls on Skomer every year:
We are honoured once again be be asked
to write a guest blog of our annual pilgrimage to Skomer to count the Lesser
Black-backed Gulls.
The weather forecast looked good
for the 5 days, and although the wind direction for our stay (mainly north)
didn’t look brilliant for rare birds, you can never really tell, little did we
know what lay ahead ………
At the end of the day, we were here
to count gulls, not find rare birds …………
We were met by Leighton as we
jumped off the Dale Queen with our not so light rucksacks, packed full of
thousands of calories to get us through the long days ahead, and said hello to
a few of the 2023 team at the top of the steps.
We walked with Leighton to the farm
and talked through the gull counts ensuring our work wouldn’t impact on both
the scarce breeding species and the other researchers already on the island.
After throwing our stuff out of the
rucksacks and stocking up the ‘day bag’ with loads of food we were off counting…….well,
after a quick check of North Valley Crossing bushes. Straight away 3 Redpoll
went over, a few Swift and hirundines were pouring through West.
We started on the North coast
towards the Garland Stone, incredibly almost the first gull we looked at was a
hybrid Herring X LBB.
.JPG) |
| Hybrid Herring Gull x LBB Gull by Mike |
After a few counts here we reached
the coast and looked over the stunning view of the north coast and the Garland
Stone- my favourite place on the planet. A few more small counts, ate lunch at
the farm and then headed off into the west fields.
We were out just beyond West pond
when a significant number of gulls went berserk towards the Wick, rising up to
mob something…. something that was heading our way ! Unsurprisingly Ted was the
first one to see it, and exclaimed (quite loudly 😊) that it was ‘massive’. I got on it and after a second or two shouted - Osprey !!
This is Ted’s favourite bird in the
world, total shock took over as the bird flew towards us, the sun behind us and
dazzling blue skies behind the bird. To describe the views as sensational is no
understatement, we punched the air, fist bumped and hugged, well after we’d
taken a few pics and the bird had passed us. A moment of magic, a memory for a
life-time !!
.JPG) |
| Osprey by Ted |
We moved on, but a day of beautiful
birds wasn’t over yet, as Ted then found a full S/P Golden Plover, the sun was
lower in the sky at this point, the plover looked fantastic in the late
afternoon sun, in the most stunning scenery – Wow !
.JPG) |
| Golden Plover by Ted |
Counting LBB’s
So just a brief idea of what we and
the island staff do to count the gulls.
The whole island is one colony of
LBB’s, it is then divided into sub-colonies which stay the same each year with
minor fluctuations in size/ shape, then there are fixed points to view each
sub-colony from. Ted and I go to those fixed points and count how many birds
are actually on nests/ nesting, these are called the eye counts.
The next day saw us continuing with
the counts but obviously ‘migrant bashing’ early morning and evening.
Good birds were still to be found
in between the counts, firstly a lovely S/P Black-tailed Godwit near Gorse Hill
and then we watched 3 Greylag Geese Fly-in, they are rare out here. At lunch at
the farm a male House Sparrow was a surprise and also a really rare bird here.
.JPG) |
| Greylag Geese by Ted |
The counts were going well with lots of fine weather, it was the 13th the next day, would it be unlucky for us.
Sat 13th May
Dawned clear, bright and sunny,
another stunning day.
As usual we started looking for
rarities at North Valley crossing, but it wasn’t a visual thing that got the
adrenalin pumping, but one of the most beautiful songs in the bird world- a
singing Nightingale – Boom !!
How incredible to be standing in
the morning sun, amongst acres of bluebells, the smells, the sounds, and then
being serenaded by this beauty.
Nightingale recording by Ted (volume up)
Other good birds arrived with a
Yellow Wagtail flying into North pond (later moving to Moorey Mere) and 2 Reed
Warblers.
.JPG) |
| Yellow Wagtail by Mike |
We were above High Cliff just before midday when Ted picked up a Skylark flying in from the East, another good bird, we finished a count and moved to South Plateau near the Mew Stone, having a look for the Skylark.
On looking to my left I saw a big
flock of ‘black’ birds going away, I exclaimed to Ted and looked at them,
seeing a flap,flap glide and their Gizz I uttered an expletive and said they
were Cormorants and that I’d hoped they were something good. We both lifted our
bins again and then both shouted – GLOSSY IBIS !!!!!!!! Pandamonium ensued.
There were about 20, yes 20 of them. It was a mixture of looking at them,
getting photos and trying to alert Leighton and the rest of the team, whilst
your hands shook from the adrenaline, thank goodness we were sitting down !
We watched the flock fly along the
south coast all the way to Skomer Head where they turned north and continued
around the coast of this magical island. Only afterwards when we’d calmed down
could we count them in our photos- there were 17 – absolutely incredible 😊
.JPG)
.JPG) |
| Glossy Ibis by Ted |
Monday 15th May saw us camped out at Skomer head at 0615 for a very chilly seawatch. Well, we don’t have a whole lot of sea in Bucks, so we have to make the most of it. Despite our hands turning numb in the cold northerlies, it was actually really good for waders. In 2hrs we enjoyed flocks of 2 Turnstone, 13 Ringed Plover, 5 Dunlin, 5 Sanderling and 3 Whimbrel. We finished the gull counts by the afternoon and actually had an hour to just sit near the Mew Stone and look for migrants arriving on the South Coast, before a beautiful evenings sunset.
 |
| Sunset by Mike |
Tuesday 16th May was our last morning before we had to leave this awesome place, the island decided to give us one more gift as Ted found a Lapwing flying around over North Valley, another new island bird for Ted.
5 Swift as we made our way East to
North Haven and all too soon it was time to jump on the Dale Queen and head for
the mainland.
Once again an incredible few days,
with totally amazing people, brilliant birds and a few thousand gulls on what
is to me, the most beautiful place on planet earth.
Mike + Ted Wallen
