By Tara McEvoy-Wilding
An early start this morning to check the moth trap! We got a total of 28 moths including; 1 Angle Shades, 5 Marbled Coronet, 8 Common Quaker, 5 Brown Silver Lines, 7 Early Grey, 1 Silver Y and 1 Oak Tree Pug.
Marbled Coronets looking fresh! Photo by Emma Abel
I spent the morning in the office until midday when we set off on a whole island seal survey for the Seal Research Trust’s Spring seal census. We split the island into 5 sections and walked along the coast path looking for seals hauled out on the rocks and swimming in the sea. I had the southeast section, which had a grand total of….. 0 seals! This was most likely due to the strong easterly winds! Others had more success and 82 seals were recorded in total. However, this is significantly less than the 184 that were spotted at this time in 2025.
No seals on the south east!
Although the seals didn’t like the easterly winds, the migrating birds didn’t seem to mind them! The Terrace was busy with 6 Willow Warblers, 5 Chiffchaff, 5 Blackcap, 3 Whitethroat and a Garden Warbler in the Willow trees. Millcombe was also busy with Sedge Warbler, a male Pied Flycatcher and a Spotted Flycatcher sighted.
Pied Flycatcher Photo taken by Greg Lee
Other exciting sightings included a Yellow Wagtail flying past the Tavern toilets, a Ringed Plover in Middle Park, 1 Jackdaw in Tillage field and a Collared Dove on Quarter’s roof! Lots of Wheatears arrived today, causing chaos on the west coast as they bothered the birds that had already arrived and set up their territories.
Wheatear photo taken by Greg Lee
In the late afternoon I went to check the Manx Shearwater boxes on the west coast, all were unoccupied apart from 1 box which contained a bird sat on an egg! The first of the season! In the evening bats were spotted flying around the village- Simon got out his bat detector and identified them as Common Pipistrelles! Overall a busy day with lots of wildlife action!