By Chloë Langmead
Hello everyone :)
It's been a windy week over here! I'm writing this while sheltering in the tavern from the 39mph gusting winds, meanwhile the Manx Shearwaters are loving it, with around 960+ seen in an hour this afternoon flying north.
I want to briefly mention that yesterday I went letterboxing for the first time, as it was my day off. I collected 9 stamps, and I found the Lundy Bunny! I ended the day by helping Jayden retrieve his Guillemots and it was a beautiful evening. I had the honour of checking the temperature, the wind speed, and direction.
Finding the Lundy Bunny. Photo by Chloë
Today has been a good day for office jobs! Jessie and I are going to be revamping the social media, trying to encourage more young people to visit Lundy. We've been working on creating some content in the form of post and videos.
We're also working on building a BRUV (Baited Remote Underwater Video) system. This is a non-invasive way to survey marine life and it works by deploying a frame with a video camera and bait canister. The BRUV is then left underwater for a set period and once retrieved, you go through the footage and ID the species seen. In this case we will be looking for Octopus, as we are interested to see if the Octopus bloom that has been occurring around the southwest UK is also occurring on Lundy. So today we have been looking at the best method to build one using what we can find on the island.
BRUV deployed on Lundy. Photo of a Smooth-hound by Robert Irving
This afternoon I had the pleasure of attending a lecture on Nudibranchs by visiting expert Bernard Picton. He and Robert Irving are running a Nudibranch ID course on Lundy for a group of divers and enthusiasts. Jessie and I were kindly invited to attend as we have a passion for marine life and more specifically Nudibranchs. They will also be hosting a talk open to the public on tomorrow at 8.30pm in the Tavern Wheelhouse!