2023 - a return.

 Following our enforced absence last year - due to all ringing activities being suspended due to Avian Influenza - we managed to get on site this year. It came with caveates though - Nature Scotland said there was to be no ringing of Great Skuas (they have been hard hit by AI), and we had to implement a biosafety procedure to ensure we didn't exacerbate any AI issues. 

That said twelve of us made the journey north to continue our long-term ringing project and this year, besides ringers, we invited along several Wildlife Conservation /Entomology students. 

On the island itself not much was different regarding the houses - a few walls had lost some stones and a few more roof tiles had dropped off. Elsewhere though the weather had created some bigger changes. A new gully to the sea had 'opened up' on the western edge, with much peat-slippage elsewhere, and a large section of rock had broken away from what we call the Slab-Wall (NW corner of the island) to create additional access to the rock face. 

The new gully

The island was 'wet' this year with lots of running streams and large pools. 

Wandering about there were the typical dead Greylag Geese - youngsters taken out by the skua - as well as the requisite number of suicidal sheep (there are about 200 sheep on the island). Checking the island for signs of AI before ringing we discovered only one dead guillemot, one kittiwake and one puffin. There were 'bits' of puffin, fulmar and other seabirds, all within what we would have expected to find. 

Besides ringing storm petrels, see next post, we undertook our usual whole-island fulmar census (numbers slightly down) and did seek out skua chicks (without ringing) to determine what level of breeding had taken place (adult numbers on the island were down by about 70-80%). We also confirmed breeding of Greater Black-backed gull, Herring Gull, Fulmar, Shag, Cormorant, Guillemot, Ringed Plover (2 pairs), Meadow Pipit, Wren, and Oystercatcher, and suspected breeding of Rock Pipit, Rock Dove, Pied Wagtail, Kittiwake and Arctic Tern.

The nine Great Skua chicks found on the island.

With our students we increased our understanding of the island by undertaking Phase 1 and Phase 2 habitat surveys, took soil samples, performed a series of botanical quadrants and started a species list for invertebrates on the island. Unfortunately we did not undertake any moth-trapping this year. 

Although generally a week interrupted heavily by wind and rain we did have a couple of more typical days.