by Kirsty Cox
When I saw that today was my day for writing the blog, I was concerned that it may be another eventful day but luckily today has gone a lot more to plan!
It started as usual with some office admin catching up with seal ID and emails including liaising with the Devon Wildlife Trust Marine Strandings Network. Sadly there have been a lot more pup deaths than usual this year and this has been the same across Devon and Cornwall, so I have been organising sending them the data that we have been collecting.
After toast I went to feed the chickens - it was my last day with this responsibility and I’ll miss seeing them every day and having a bit of chicken therapy time!
Then it was off on pup check. It has been a quiet few days with the pups as there have been no new arrivals but it is nice to see the pups who are on the beaches doing well and developing as they should.
Part way through my pup check route I went down to meet the boat to take up my position as pup police - although we don’t currently have any very young pups in the Landing Bay, we still need people to keep their distance from the weaned and moulted pups and it is great time to meet people arriving on the Oldenburg and to chat to them about all things seal.
After completing pup check and processing the photos, it was time to head back to speak to people as they were walking back down to the boat. Boat days always seem to pass so quickly, especially on Ilfracombe days when there are only a few hours between the boat arriving the boat leaving.
With a bit more ID work completed in the office, it was time to sign off. So all in all a much less eventful day than my previous two blog days but that was definitely welcome!
Elsewhere on the island there were continued sightings of a Yellow-browed Warbler as well as a Common Redstart, 2 Lapland Bunting, 4 Redwing, a Spotted Flycatcher and a Tree Pipit. 
Yellow-browed Warbler by Greg Lee