By Simon Parker
Today was a day reminiscent of my life as Warden on that other Island that shall not be named. As Warden, it's important to be flexible to the jobs that come your way and everyday is different, today was an excellent example. It all started at 5.30am, I'm currently helping Tristan the Islands engineer with his morning pre power checks. For those unfamiliar with Lundy, the power comes on automatically at 6:15am everyday. Prior to that, Tristan checks the generators for serviceability and tops up oils/coolant. All things I'm familiar with from previous jobs and all was well this morning, everyone had enough power for their morning kettle and nothing set on fire.
I had enough time to go and clean out the church ready for the visiting Landmark Trust luminaries to explore it later in the day, possibly for some stained glass window spotting or to soak up the divine favour, that's not for me to say. But, I'm told by Thomas that some of them may read this blog now, welcome! I hope the church was clean..
After that, I still had time for breakfast before grabbing the "posh" land rover and picking up the team to go up the island planting trees. Me and the conservation team have been battling the inclement weather to plant over 100 trees along the lower East path between Gannets Combe and Brazen Ward. I've also been press ganging visitors into helping out, so if you're visiting soon, I have about 45 left to plant so bring a shovel!
Roger (Ranger) Dina (visiting ex vol and local hero) Tara( Assistant Warden)
These trees have some strong Deer protection and are 2-3 year old to give them more chance, our hope is that this could be the beginning of more trees along the East coast in the future. Be sure to check them out when you're next over.
A quick drive back to meet Tom the farmer in the tavern where we gave a presentation to the Landmark team on the future of stewardship on the island, much chin scratching was had. But time was flying by though and soon Thomas and Eleanor arrived for out pre-planned check on the Manx Shearwater boxes. Some of them needed some interior design alterations but overall things were looking good, there were even signs of some cheeky early prospectors.
Back to the village to get a quick bite to eat before heading to the tavern for the Southwest Marine Ecosystem Seminar where I talked a bit about Lundys seabirds with the help of Paul St Pierre from the RSPB. That just about wrapped up and finished around 10pm, a pretty varied day.
Somewhere in of all that, a Grey Heron was spotted over the quarry, the lone Jackdaw is still around the village and plenty of parachuting Meadow pipits are around. Thomas and Eleanor were much more successful and spotted 10 Sand Martin at the North end of the island along with a Green Sandpiper in Pondsbury with a group of Teal. Not a huge birding day, just an average day for a Warden.