A puffin counters view of the island

Amanda Kuepfer spent a week on the island mainly taking part in the puffin burrow count. This is her story of the week.

My Isle of May week 27 April - 4 May 2013.

Having recently moved to NE Scotland for a (mainly office-based) job as Seabird Ecologist with JNCC, I was determined to spend my spare time in the field, by the sea, amongst the birds. After a few enquiring emails to various individuals and organisations, I received an offer by Mark Newell from CEH to volunteer for this year’s puffin count on the Isle of May. Perfect!

The timing of the puffin count week couldn’t have been better. After a 5 day brain-frying statistics course in land-locked Birmingham I boarded the May Princess at Anstruther Harbour with my oversized rucksack, bins around my neck and a layer of sun cream on my nose – always a satisfying combination of stuff, I find!

The crossing was wonderful - calm, sunny, with gannets gliding beside the boat; razorbills, common and black guillemots rafting on the water, and WOOHOO, the puffins are back too! With the exception of one lone puffin at the Fowlsheugh reserve two weeks prior, I had so far only seen numerous dead ones washed up on the coast of NE Scotland – the remnants of the puffin wreck caused by the prolonged cold weather and strong winds. So it felt good to see dozens of them bobbing up and down on the water as we approached the island.

Upon landing, I was received by a bunch of friendly faces - the more permanent island crew I would be working and staying with. They introduced me to our base and the most important house rules, including ‘No Showers’ and ‘Never apologise for your cooking’. Suits me fine.

The puffin count wasn’t going to start until the day after so I used the time to explore the island. In the company of PhD student Klara and photographer Celine, I followed the path around to the edge of the cliffs where the winds blew harsh and cool. Dramatic and breathtaking, the cliffs dropped down several hundred feet where the waves crashed angrily against them. Kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, shags and fulmars brought the static cliffs alive, squealing and flapping, squabbling and snuggling – a truly heart-warming sight. Down below, grey seals lazily stretched out on a rock in the afternoon sun. Up above, herring, lesser and greater black-backed gulls circled the skies, screeching their little hearts out. Oystercatchers flapped past us with their wonderful piping calls, eider ducks waddled about, and little passerines including wheatears, pied wagtails and linnets crossed our path as we continued to follow it around the island. And then there were the bunnies. Hundreds of them! They are the ever so important gardeners of the May without which the island’s vegetation would be considerably different and unsuitable for puffins to dig their nesting burrows. But where ARE all the puffins? Oh they have returned. But this early in the late season, they prefer spending most of their time on the water, and only return to their nesting sites every couple of days.                     

After a delicious dinner, Mark showed me around the various hides along the southwestern cliffs, one more ingeniously built than the next, allowing for fantastic views of the nesting sites. This is where much of the hard work happens, with the continuous monitoring of the different species and individuals from their return to the colony to their departure at the end of the season.
The puffin count started bright and early the next day, following a briefing by Mike Harris. Actually, it wasn’t so much a puffin count as a puffin burrow count, counting the holes in the ground which showed some sign of activity – puffin guano, clear openings, etc. This may sound deceptively straight forward. But the ground off the main paths is completely undermined by a network of burrows and required hopping between solid rock and thick tufts to avoid stepping through the burrows. With winds blowing so strong I wondered if I could free-fall into them, balancing on isolated solid patches turned out surprisingly challenging! Luckily the winds calmed down over the following days, and with continued sunshine and an army of several people, the burrow count advanced well and we developed the fashionable island tan that starts at the chin and ends at the eyebrows below the brim of the woolly hats.

It did feel slightly bizarre counting thousands of burrows without a single puffin in sight. But that changed on Tuesday, when, like the previous mornings, I got up just before 7 to scan the island for puffins. I was just putting on my shoes, still half asleep, when Klara rushed through the door with the good news: The puffins are back! And so they were. As I swiftly walked to the hide, I passed hundreds of them perched on rocks, working at their burrows, preening, and greeting their mates through a vigorous and adorable display called billing where they knock their beaks together. Once in the hide, I noticed hundreds more arriving, frantically flapping their way across the water onto dry land. I’d never seen this many puffins!

The patch visible from the hide was covered in burrows, each of which had a small numbered pole next to it. Many of the puffins inhabiting them wore unique colour ring combinations which were fitted in previous seasons. This was going to be the first of several mornings when I would be looking to find which specific individuals had safely returned to breed, which burrow they were nesting in, and which mate they were breeding with. Combination red-orange on left leg, green-BTO on right leg - back in number 35. Puffins are amazingly loyal to their burrows. They are also very loyal to their mates, although so-called divorces do occur, when either of the mate dies, or for other reasons. It felt a real privilege to be able to observe this iconic bird from so close, watching them crawl in and out of their burrows, many emerging absolutely covered in soil and with clumps of mud in their beaks, obviously doing their annual spring clean.

But it’s not all rosy in the Puffin neighbourhood. A few mornings later, when I was crouched in the hide again, and having just taken pleasure in seeing the pair at number 5 performing one of their very many billing sessions, a greater black-backed gull took a fancy to them. Whilst one escaped into the burrow, the other put up an increasingly feeble fight against the vicious pecking of its enemy, until, eventually, it was dragged into the air by its beak and disappeared from my view. … Such is the harsh reality of nature.

But besides the wonders of the birds and the incredibly atmospheric scenery of the island, another very memorable aspect of my week on the May were the people I worked with. In the evenings, after 10pm when the working day drew to an end, there was always a relaxed and content atmosphere in the living room, drinking fine whisky, reading about the outside world, playing cards and enjoying the heat of Jeremy’s blazing master fires in the stove. However, you always had to be aware of your phrases as not to end up in the legendary quote book. True to British culture, the innuendo was rife.

The last evening was one of those perfectly clear nights that made the night-time island just as stunning as the day. With a cool breeze on my face, binoculars to my eyes and the ‘Owwwwoooooo’ of the eider ducks in my ears, I looked up at an incredibly starry sky and wished that I could stay.

But my last day came and, boarding the Princess once again, I received a lovely farewell from everyone. When Jeremy and Cash detached the bridge from the boat, I couldn’t stop the tears welling up as I realised that a very special week had come to an end.

Thanks to everyone, until next time when I return to the beautiful Isle of May .

                           

Dad dancing at the kittiwake colony.

The rain that we have had on the last few days has had a dramatic affect on the kittiwakes. For the past few weeks they seemed to have been hanging around making a lot of noise on their nesting ledges but showing no sign of getting on with it. With the rain soaking the soil and filling a few pools suddenly the kittis have switched to nest making mode and are frantically digging up beaks full of mud and grass which they fly back to their nests looking like the have a very full, bushy moustache. The best bit happens once they are on the ledge as they put the mud onto the platform and then tread it in with their feet. At the moment if you look across the kittiwake colonies all you can see are birds puddling their mud, sticking their bums out while staring into the distance and looking like a bad case of  Dad dancing at a wedding disco.

Kitti dancing with the bum in the air.

A lot of grubby bills.

Where the kits have been digging in the mud.

Big tache.

Bluethroat and Shrike

The north-easterly winds have finally born fruit with a collection of very smart birds on the island. Red-backed shrikes and bluethroats are always fantastic to see, the Isle of May being one of the best places in Scotland to see these birds when they are on migration. What next?

The bluethroat was a female so only had a hint of blue on its throat.

Continuing the theme of throats a lesser whitethroat dropped in as well.

The bluethroat heading for the rhubarb patch after being ringed.

One of 4 red-backed shrikes that turned up on the island over the last couple of days - this was is a smart male. One of the birds was found in the heligoland trap in the middle of eating a previously ringed willow warbler. It is just what they do.

24 hours 2 different islands

It has gone from the sublime to the awful out here. Friday was glorious, Saturday was horrendous.
On Friday there was hardly any wind (a rare thing out here) and warm sunshine and the visitors from the May Princess strolled around in shirt sleeves. Yesterday it blew a north-easterly force 7 to 8, there was a 3m swell pounding the east side, there were no boats and it rained a bit. It blew so hard that the fog-horn was softly sounding as the wind blew across the end of the long dead horn, like a whisper of a ghost horn from years previously. The changes on this island are sometimes hard to follow.

The thrift is coming out into full flower.

Visitors lounged around outside the Mousehouse visitor centre.

The May Princess sat serenely in the harbour.

Happy customers heading home.

A lovely afternoon for a snooze on the cliff tops.

Saturday was a different matter.

No boats, no visitors.

The harbour was a no go-zone.

The guillemots and shags just had to hunker down on their eggs and sit it out.

Isle of May NNR on BBC Countryfile - Sunday 19 May

Word on the street is that the Countryfile programme on Sunday (tonight) night will have something on the Isle of May NNR, mainly looking at the state of the seabirds. So if you want to see the island and its seabirds in all its moving glory,....... plus also some slightly grubby seabird researchers then you must WATCH IT!!!!!!
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t0bv

Swallows - Sea and other

Forked tails and tail streamers are the name of the game here.
Being on a small island tends to change your perspective a bit but I reckon just  about everyone, island or not, gets a real lift when "their " swallows come back each spring. And we are no exception. Last year we had swallows breeding on the island for only the second time in 18 years so it was magic to see them back around the island, this time it looks like 3 pairs might breed. I am sure I recognise one of the birds from last year but I could be mistaken. So we will be watching the outbuildings here on Fluke Street very carefully as well as the Wash house at the top of the island for nest building though it does seem a bit cold to produce much in the way of food for them .

 The other forked tails, the sea swallows are also back. "Our" terns have been making early morning appearences over the Beacon but heading off out to sea again for a week or so but the last day or so they have been staying longer and coming to ground more. They are such beautifully put together birds with the pitch black cap, soft dove grey wings and those bright plastic red bill and feet. Over the next few months we will be spending a lot of our island time focussed on trying to allow these birds to breed succesfully. This will mean much time in the hides but it is already good to see that some of the birds are taking a look at the tern nesting platforms that the volunteers put some much time into building in brutal weather at the beginning of the season. So here we go on the roller coaster ride of a tern breeding season.

View of the colonty.

Nesting platform inspection.

The local oystercatchers that nest in the tern colony will be in two minds, the terns protect them fro gull predation but oh the noisy neighbours.

Some of the nesting paltforms all ready to go.

The tern watching hide up at the Beacon, all spruced up and reapired by Kerry, one of our long-term volunteers.

Nightjar and a sprinkle of migrants

That 30mins before tea is quickly becoming the best bird time on the island this season. Wednesday at 1800 and Mark found a nightjar on the island, only that 2nd record in 42 years, and what was known as gadwall o' clock is now known as nightjar o'clock. The cottage emptied but it could not be found again so when tea arrived it was a bit subdued.
However yesterday morning the bird was found sunbathing on the grass bank where a number of us had already walked past. A lovely looking bird with the most amazing patterns, it was soon to be admired by all the locals, human, rock pipits, a wheatear and the local rabbits. 

Rock pipit having a look at the funny bird.

a wheatear dropped in as well.

The rabbits were less interested.

The human island residents immediately congregated

Some of the residents are taller than others but all got to see the bird.
                 

                    Harry wanted a closer shot.        

The nightjar came in with a sprinkling of migrants brought to the island by eaterly winds and on the island by showers. They included common redstarts, tree pipits, a yellow wagtail, common whitethroat and pied flycatcher.