Just thought it might be interesting for people to catch up with some of the less known island stuff and a comment about Spotted Flycatchers fist.
We have Spot Fly's nesting in the garden and have had more or less every year in the last 10 years or so and we hardly ever see them until the chicks hatch and the adults start to flycatch on more exposed branches. Otherwise they are VERY secretive and rarely come out of the canopy and it takes a lot of patience to try and see them as they see you before we see them and they just sit there hidden from view.
In the last couple of weeks we have completed the seabird counts and ringing on Caldey and St Margarets and also managed to Shag survey and ringing visit to Mildand Island.
The Caldey counts, which we have done for over 40 years, found 1,950 Herring Gull nests making it the second largest colony in the UK albeit only half the population of the 1970's and we ringed 200 well grown chicks for the 20th year. there are also 511 Lesser Black-backed gulls and 8 Greater Black-backed gulls there along with a record 188 Razorbills and 140 Guillemot although the cliffs are mostly unsuitable for them. Probably 2 pairs of Chough (one definately breeding) and saw a Red Legged Partridge (introduced in 2019) and a couple of Red Squirrels. Caldey is very under watched and has some great habitat and a September visit to watch the often spectacular Swallow passage is unforgettable.
On St Margarets a minimum of 112 Cormorant pairs is the lowest count since the 1960's and just 3 Shag nests (there were over 30 at one time but its been very variable), 1685 Guillemot and 244 Razorbills (both about the same as 2019) and at least 65 pairs of GBB gulls. Up to 17 Puffins almost daily around the northern cliffs and 2 burrow sites located. In a short visit we ringed 40 good sized Cormorant chicks but at least another 60 were too big to approach, we also ringed 45 large GBB chicks. the survey here and the ringing visits date back to 1969 - one of the longest running continuous data sets in the UK.
Just a few days earlier on Midland we found just 13 Shag nests and ringed just 15 chicks - the lowest count there since the early 1980's and a major decline from the early 2000's when the population peaked at 55 pairs and we ringed 130 chicks. Breeding success was also low at less than 2 chicks per pair. We wonder whether the increasingly severe storms are causing some problems for this coastal feeding species. In contrast to St Margarets the GBB chicks here were really tiny or just hatching - a good 3 weeks behind.