By Thomas Weston
A Wednesday! And a non-travel day. The wind was still quite strong and now coming from the North West. It is always a bit hit and miss whether Millcombe is sheltered or not but it seemed today the weather was calm enough for mist netting in the valley, despite 25-30mph winds at the top. Being on the edge of high pressure means the birds are moving at super speeds and using the nice sunny and warm weather to move. Despite a calm valley, we gave mist netting a miss as people were rather tired from all the nocturnal adventures.
Help on census
I undertook census with Birders Week Peter and it was a real success. Noticeably, there was a fall of a few common migrants with 34 Willow Warblers, 2 Whitethroats, single Sedge Warbler, and a bunch of ‘new in’ Wheatears with many going around in flocks of 5-8 and totalling 43. The Wheatears were great, and to have completed some night catching for them, it was ideal to see a couple of metal-ringed only ones in amongst the loose feeding flocks around the south. The funky juvenile Channel Wagtail who has been hanging around Rocket Pole Pond for a little now, was also seen. This weird and wacky hybrid is the unringed individual out of the two chicks fledged this year, and it is great that it is still going strong.
Due to my Tavern shift this afternoon, we set the Birders a challenge to undertake some letterboxing and to fully immerse themselves into Lundy life: either spotting dragonflies at Pondsbury, birding the North coast, running the Heligoland trap, opening some mist nets if they had the correct permits, and generally having fun and socialising together. This led to a Sedge Warbler being caught and ringed in the Heligoland trap – a fat score of either 6 or 7 led to a lot of laughs by the team. Thus, a generational thing that Lundy really has not caught up with yet! And Greg found a passing Minke Whale from South West Point which was very nice and missed by many. The Birders Week team undertook some letterboxing, swimming and opened some Millcombe nets, catching a few Willow Warblers, a Stonechat, Linnet, and a couple of retrap House Sparrows too.
Manx Shearwater whilst out nightcatching by Mathile
I worked the Tavern in the afternoon/evening whilst Jessie gave a great talk about some of the marine life in the local water around Lundy. After the Tavern, we decided to go Manx Shearwater ringing and caught about 16 birds before midnight which was a success. The oldest bird had been ringed roughly 7 years ago, and the team got to see the adults of this species up close and personal for the first time on the trip. Back by 00:30 tomorrow!