By Kirsty Cox
Today started with a trip to visit the Manx Shearwater colony so that the chicks in the boxes could be weighed. It was my first time visiting the colony since I got back to the island just over a week ago. I was here volunteering with the Conservation Team for two months last summer and this season I am here volunteering as the Seal Fieldworker to monitor the arrivals during the Grey Seal pupping season and also to carry out population and disturbance surveys.
It was wonderful to visit the Manxie colony again and to see how the chicks are doing this year. Some are definitely almost ready to go! Whilst we were checking the chicks we were lucky enough to see three little egrets over the sea at the battery and a peregrine gave us a fly by!
(Photo by Jessie Dermody)
After leaving the Manxies I spent the rest of the day carrying out a seal population survey. At this time of year we survey the whole of the east coast of the island at least once a week at low tide to count the number of seals hauled out or in the sea in each of the bays. Photos are also taken of each hauled out seal so that we can try and ID them. Every seal has a unique fur pattern, like our fingerprints, so we are able to create records for each individual seal and hopefully match them to the seals we have in the Lundy seal catalogue. It was hot work today with the rising temperatures but great to see 60 seals in total along the coast. And hopefully it won’t be too long before the first pups start arriving…
(Photo by Kirsty Cox)
In the evening we met up at Old Light to watch for the solar eclipse. There were various methods used to be able to see it - special glasses, pinhole cameras, homemade projectors and colanders! It was an amazing sight and Lundy was a very special place to be able to see it.
(Photo by Kirsty Cox)