Autumn is in full swing here on Skomer. With strong winds becoming the norm, the Ragwort and bracken are beginning to die off, and Grey Seal pups are popping up all round the island beaches.
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| Sunrise over the Neck during Seal monitoring |
Arts Week
With our events season well underway, we followed on from Black2Nature with
Skomer’s first ever arts week. The week was split into two; an art retreat with
Linda Norris followed by a folk music retreat with Filkin’s Drift.
Led by Linda Norris, a local Welsh artist, the group got creative with a
wide variety of forms, from charcoal to cyanotype paper. With guided walks,
Skomer Vole handling and more, the group were able to draw inspiration from
the multitude of colours, patterns, and textures found across the island. To
end the retreat, a ‘private viewing’ was held in the farmhouse to celebrate and
appreciate all the amazing artwork produced over the few days.
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| The arts group handling Skomer Voles |
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| A Skomer Vole |
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| A selection of the artwork produced on Skomer during the arts retreat |
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| More of the art! |
As the art group left, the folk musicians arrived. The usual changeover
luggage consisting of camera equipment and hiking poles now consisted of paint
brushes, sketchpads, and instrument cases. For the next several days, the farm
transitioned from an art gallery to a concert venue with folk tunes drifting
across the courtyard all day, much to the pleasure of its residents. The
musicians learnt and developed compositional and playing techniques and used
Skomer’s landscape and wildlife as inspiration to create their own melodies and
tunes. The music retreat was led by Filkin’s Drift, a contemporary folk duo
who have recently walked 870 miles along the entirety of the Welsh coast path
on a sustainable music tour.
This was the first record of musicians performing on Skomer, and it fit the
island atmosphere perfectly. Each evening, the group would have a jam session,
where everyone on the island could come together and play, whatever their
musical ability. Though the acoustics in the visitor centre were amazing, the
only room big enough to fit everyone in was the hostel lounge. Somehow, 28
chairs were squeezed into the room and everyone on the island came together to
enjoy a night of music. With the wind and rain outside, a moody French tune was
the perfect match and as Rob began playing everyone joined in one-by-one,
slowly building up a rich blend of tones and harmonies. From bouzoukis and
Shruti boxes, sitars to five-string fiddles, the mix of sounds was enthralling.
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| The folk group playing in the old farmhouse |
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| Folk musicians crammed in the lounge! |
Shearwater Week
The next instalment of this event season was Shearwater Week, with several
groups coming to enjoy the magnificent Manx Shearwaters that call Skomer their
home. The schedule included helping with chick weighing, watching rafts at the
Garland Stone, night walks amongst the colony, and an evening of talks from the
OxNav research group. Several fascinating talks highlighting their research and
knowledge were given by Sarah, Bridget, Layla, and Patricia.
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| A Shearwater Week group being shown Manx Shearwater chicks. |
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| A group watching rafts from the Garland Stone |
OxNav Finishes Regular Nightwork
As the end of the Manx Shearwater season approaches, the OxNav group have
finished their regular nightwork. This work involved being up until 3/4am to
monitor and work on the Manx Shearwater colony at night; checking burrows for
adults with GPS or GLS attachments, weighing the birds post-feeding, and more.
Sadly, we have said goodbye to Lewis, our Oxford PhD student who had been
working hard with nightwork and data analysis on Manx Shearwater navigation. We
also sadly said goodbye to Patricia, who had been with us for a couple of weeks
helping the rest of the OxNav team and collecting data for her own PhD research.
Regular night work might be over, but the OxNav group are still hard at work
with daily chick weighing, data analysis, conference preparation and more. The
chicks are getting big now with some having lost almost all their down who now
look like chunky adult birds, but still weighing one and a half times the
weight of an adult. These chicks will need to lose some of that weight,
transferring a lot of it into muscle to power their wings to get themselves all
the way to Argentina. Other chicks are in the phase of having the adult
feathers coming through, but still having patches of down here and there,
giving some individuals large mutton chop sideburns, a big afro, or fluffy
ruffs.
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| A patchy Manx Shearwater chick |
Seal Pups!
Pupping season is gaining traction and at the time of writing, there are
already over twenty pups across the island. More and more Grey Seals are
hauling out onto beaches and bays, especially at North and South Haven and
their haunting calls and songs are drifting across the island. Here is a quick
guide on how to tell your bulls from your cows, and your pups from your
weaners:
Cows: These are the females and tend to be lighter coloured and spottier.
You can easily identify the cows when they’re pregnant as they’re especially
round. Looking at their face, it tends to be flatter, with the head not being
as large as the males.
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| A cow at North Haven |
Bulls: These are the males and are considerably larger than the cows (females) being up to 2.5m long and weighing up to 300kg (compared to 200kg for the cows). They appear darker and less patterned, their head looks larger, and their face looks slightly curved/concave with a “Roman nose” look to them.
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| The distinctive "Roman nose" of the bull |
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| A cow (lower left) and a bull (upper right) |
Pups: These are the cream/white fluffy young and could be stained yellow if they’re only a few days old. They start by looking quite thin and lean but quickly grow and seem to inflate as they quickly gain weight. This is because the milk they get from their mum is 60% fat which causes them to gain around 2kg every single day. They are fed for around three weeks until they moult their white fluffy coat (lanugo) and become a weaner.
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| A young pup only a few days old. The fresh umbilical is still visible |
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| An older pup, probably a week or so old |
Weaners: These are the pups which have moulted their white coat and now have the patterning they’ll keep for the rest of their life, even after moulting each year. They are the size of a large pup, but have the patterning of an adult, and usually paler colouring.
Immature: These are the seals which haven’t reached sexual maturity and are
a few years old. They look similar to the adults in colour and patterning but
are noticeably smaller.
Happy seal watching!
Bladder Campion Anther Smut Fungus
After my blog post last month talking about the Red Campion Anther Smut
Fungus (Microbotryum silene-dioicae) I thought that would be all the
smut fungi I would talk about here on the blog. However, after an exciting find
last week, I can’t help but talk about another one. When learning about the
species associated with Red Campion, I saw that there are other campions that
get affected by their own smut fungi, notably the Bladder Campion Anther Smut
Fungus (M. silenes-inflatae). This species affects the anthers of
the Sea Campion flower in a similar way to M. silene-dioicae, where the infected
anthers are coated in a dark mass of spores. Bladder Campion Anther Smut is
also likely to be a common fungus, like the Red Campion Anther Smut, however it
is under-recorded to an even greater extent with only a sprinkle of records across
the UK and Europe. This was really exciting to find and even more so as we are
late in the flowering season for the Sea Campion, with few flowers still out
across the island.
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| The Bladder Campion Anther Smut Fungus! |
Mushroom Season
On the topic of mushrooms, after a reasonably wet summer, the fungi season
is off to a great start. Meadow Puffballs are popping up all across the island,
with quite a few even coming up in the courtyard. The giant Parasols at around
20cm tall are appearing almost overnight and Brittlestems are dotted along the
sides of the path.
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| A large Parasol mushroom |
Another recent fungal highlight (two in a single blog post?! Must be your lucky day!) was Entomophthora muscae, sometimes called the Fly Death Fungus. This is a fairly frequent fungus which infects different species of fly and after several days, the fly tends to crawl to a high point, extend their legs, and open their wings, ensuring the fungal spores are dispersed as widely as possible. You can tell a fly has been infected by the unusual resting position of stretched legs and open wings, and the hyphae have burst out of the fly’s body. This fungus seems like something out of a zombie apocalypse film as it takes control of the fly’s brain in order to effectively spread to more hosts. This is a fairly common fungus, so keep an eye out for any dead flies at the tops of plants. Spooky, but amazing!
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| A fly that has been infected by E. muscae. |
Autumn Migration
Although the influx of autumn migrants hasn’t properly ramped up yet, the
noticeable difference is the departure of some of the Skomer residents, notably
the gulls. Only a few weeks ago the ponds across Skomer were covered in them,
with North Pond regularly accommodating well over a hundred of them. Though
most gulls are seen as pesky chip-stealing birds which terrorise the seaside,
they are amazingly smart and underrated. With my welcome talks to the visitors,
I always try to convert them to gull-lovers by the end of the day with help
from a story which Ceris told me:
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| North Pond: Left - 22nd July with over 150 gulls present. Right - 27th August with no gulls present. |
Some French ornithologists were having lunch in a Parisian park and saw
someone feeding the birds with bread. A Herring Gull came along and took a
chunk, but instead of eating the bread, decided to use it elsewhere. Taking the
large chunk to the fish pond, the gull began breaking it into smaller pieces
and dropping them into the water. Now the gull simply waited for the fish to
eat the bread and caught them. Amazing!
The gulls are smart, but sadly their populations are also in decline,
which takes most people by surprise as you hardly think their numbers are
struggling in coastal towns. The rural population however is in decline,
which makes Skomer an important breeding ground for the gulls. Plenty of
research is taking place here to monitor their populations and long term
trends.
Our resident Kittiwakes are the next bird to leave Skomer for this season
and we’ve seen their numbers slowly dwindle, with South Stream and High Cliff
becoming eerily quiet with only the sounds of seals drifting across the bays.
The colony at the Wick is still bustling with activity most days as the last of
the juveniles ready themselves to head out to sea for the winter.
Kittiwake and Fulmar Monitoring
With the seabird season coming to a close, this meant we sadly said goodbye
to Freya, one of our seabird field workers, who had been hard at work all
season collecting data from gulls, Puffins, and more. Will, another one of our
field workers has been finishing off the Fulmar and Kittiwake monitoring with
regular checks on plots including both North and South Haven, the Neck, the
Wick, and the Amos. Each seabird has their own monitoring methodology and
involve checking nest sites for the presence and age of the chick(s).
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| Pete (left, Skomer LTV) and Will (right, seabird field worker) looking at the Fulmars in South Haven from Captain Kites |
An interesting thing we’ve noticed around Skomer are some fulmar chicks have taken residence in what looks like small caves at the tops of the cliffs. These appear to be old burrows which have been partially eroded away to leave an opening on the cliffside. A handy place to live if it’s raining or particularly hot!
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| A Fulmar chick with the penthouse suite |
Ragwort Mapping
The Ragwort has put on an amazing show this year with carpets of this
wonderful plant covering almost every corner of the island. Our long-term
volunteers Pete and Nick have mapped the Ragwort this season to find out just
how much it covers Skomer - it turns out it was quite a lot!
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| The distribution of the ragwort this season |
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| Pete (Skomer LTV) mapping the Ragwort from the trig point |
There’s a nice relationship between the Cinnabar Moth and their foodplant, the Ragwort. As the Ragwort flowers for the second or third year, the population of Cinnabar moths increase on a massive scale, and the caterpillars eat through huge amounts of the plants. Some years, this causes the Ragwort to take several years to recover again, and the cycle starts over.
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| Golden skies with the golden flowers |
The nights are drawing in and and flocks of migratory birds are beginning to pass through. The autumn season is upon us as we head into September here on Skomer.
-Nick (Skomer LTV)
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| Sunrise looking towards the neck from South Plateau |
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