Sunday 2 May

No blog for yesterday as the bird ringing has been dire with cold nights (frosts) and clear, often windy weather. Migrants have been few in number. We scraped a Blackcap and two Chiffchaff and furled the nets at 11 o’clock, before going to lunch at Le Fleur du Jardin – very good. Yesterday’s other event was a bat walk near La Seigneurie at dusk. We had good results last October so were disappointed only to have two Common Pipistrelles on the bat recorders. This could be due to the continuing cold weather and lack of insects, but it would be interesting to continue to monitor bat numbers in the area.

Today was even worse on the ringing front – one female Blackbird. She had a brood patch – an area where feathers are shed and blood supply to the patch increases so eggs are kept warm when she sits on the nest. Thirty-seven new birds for the week is nothing to brag about! The nets have been packed away ready to be shipped back to Guernsey on Wednesday.

A walk along the Hogsback produced a Brown Argus butterfly – my first for the year and lovely to see as they are not common. After another delicious lunch at Le Fleur du Jardin, scallops cooked to perfection and an excellent lobster salad, we headed back to La Seigneurie and walked down to a small headland overlooking Les Autlets where a colony of Guillemots are breeding.

I do like seabirds and to see the Guillemots jostling together on the rocky stack or rafting together on the water at fairly close quarters was a definite highlight of the trip. We counted between 160 -170 birds on the rocks and in the sea. It went a fair way towards making up for the poor numbers of ringed birds. There were also Fulmar flying out from the cliffs and with the sea looking clear and a gorgeous green-turquoise I was left thinking how lucky we are to live in the Bailiwick. The Bird Section is organising a day trip to Sark on 22 May and I hope this will be on the itinerary.

This is our last full day. We were due back on the afternoon boat tomorrow but when we looked at the weather forecast with winds in excess of 40 mph, we opted to go for the morning sailing which still promises to be a bit rougher than today when the sea looked flat calm.

This does mean that I may be able to make it to the Pollinator Project’s afternoon at Le Grand Pre where it might be quite sheltered. As I can’t work out how to do screenshots on my iPad, if you want to find out more about this wetland ramble, search for Pollinator Project Guernsey on Facebook. They are putting a moth trap out tonight so I hope their results will be better than mine – dismal mothing so far this spring!