The seals of Bardsey Island

An hour and a half south of Anglesey is the island of Bardsey. Its quite small and can only be reached via boat from Porth Meudwy on the LLyn peninsula. Its not as big or with as much variety as Skomer but the 4 hours you spend there are well worth it.

You start off by meeting the boat at a small cove. It comes round the corner after already dropping supplies off on the island and gets pulled up by tractor onto dry land so you can board it.

The cove where you board

Once on board, and there were only about 20 passengers so lots of room, it takes around 20 minutes to get to Bardsey. Before landing you do a tour under the cliffs to see the seabirds - puffins, razorbills, guillemots, shags and kittiwakes.

Unlike at Skomer you cannot get close to the seabirds whilst on land so this was the best views we had. Apparently it has been a good if late breeding year for them.

Once we had landed and disembarked we headed across ot the seal colony, probably the highlight of any visit. You also got a better view of the layout of the island, which is mostly flat with one small hill forming the cliffs where the seabirds nest.

Although it had been very dry there were still a few wild flowers around, despite the best efforts of the free-roaming sheep to keep them cropped!

The lighthouse is, logically, on the seaward side of the island, quite near the seal colony.

The seals are Atlantic grey seals, our larger version, and whilst we were there numbered about 40 I would guess.

They were either mooching about in the water or pulled up on the rocks, doing the classic banana shape. They were also very vocal, singing to each other, or rather vocalising to assert dominance. It did sound like a chorus when 2 or 3 of them got going at the same time.

We spent ages sitting by the colony watching what they were up to. The more you watched the more you saw, especially some of the males and females interacting.

Around the bay where the seals were pulled out a number of oystercatchers were patrolling the rocks and one in particular seemed a bit upset at one point. I think it must have had a nest or chicks nearby so we moved on to let it settle down!

Finally, the other iconic species on the island is the chough. This relative of our crows was in steep decline and only really bred on the south Wales coast. In the last decade though it has spread along the Welsh coast and into Cornwall, where it can find the rocky cliffs and flat fields behind. It is on those it uses its characteristic long red beak to probe for worms.

They are named for their loud call of "chow, chow, chow" which they often give when they fly and this was how I picked up this small family group. They moved from the rocks on the coast to a very parched meadow where feeding would be very difficult.

With our boat due to leave we departed the island and headed back to Anglesey. If you are ever in this area its a trip well worth making!

Flying high

 Most of the time i like taking photos of wildlife, landscapes or gardens. Having joined a local photographic club, Amersham, I thought I ought to expand my oeuvre. So, after the terns at Cemlyn whne the wind was blowing and the sky was blue I thought a trip to Rhosneigr might yield some interesting results. This is a flat, wide bay which is very popular with wind- and kite-surfers and you see lots of photos of them looking very active and daring. However, by the time we moved only about 10 miles as the chough flies the weather had dramatically changed. The wind was still strong but a sea-fret had moved in and the visibility was tricky going on poor. Still, I headed off to the beach to give it a go! With the visibility so poor I've had to do loads of post-processing in lightroom but it still should give you a flavour of the scene.

With the strong wind there were kite-surfers flying up into the air and what used to be wind-surfers carving the waves. All the boards now though have hydro-foils attached making them fly across the waves rather than bounce through them.

I think most of the people out there were quite good as I very rarely saw anyone wiped-out despite them coming quite close to each at times.

Although it was very challenging I was quite pleased with some of the results, although I doubt any will see the light of day in competition at Amersham. I'll be going to Portland soon where they do the same stuff and hopefully the weather will be kinder.

The terns of Cemlyn

 On the top right of Anglesey is a lovely little reserve, Cemlyn Bay. It's not a big reserve, especially by RSPB standards, being one inland freshwater pool set back from a shingle bank. Run by the local Wildlife trist it is a hotspot though for nesting terns, with sandwich, common and arctic terns all nesting on the islands. It also attracts the rarer roseate tern, which occasionally nests here but mainly visits from its nesting grounds on offshore islands.

We visited twice on our holiday to Anglesey, the fist time with it blowing a right hoolie and the second a much calmer day. Judith spent the time painting the wild flowers whilst I camped out with my 'scope and camera trying to find the roseate tern! It was helped enormously by the very informative and friendly wardens who greet visitors and show them the birds.

As you can see, the islands are mainly artificial, covered in the middle with low vegetation in which the terns nest. The viewing is very good, you are partially sheltered behind the shingle bank and are at a large enough distance that there is no disturbance to the birds. 

As you stand watching them, there is a constant stream of mainly sandwich terns bringing food in to their youngsters. These were parked on what passes for a beach which was a hive of activity. One thing you cannot convey in a blog is the noise, and smell, of a seabird colony. Constant activity and always something to look at!

The fishing must be good offshore as they were bringing back very good sized prey items for their youngsters. Looking out to sea you could see the decommissioned nuclear reactor, as per Dungeness and Minsmere where the warm water brings in fish.

The birds were passing overhead as they came in to the islands, so close it could make tracking them hard, but another was always on its in!

The only disturbance to the colony came not from people but a pair of peregrine falcons which had taken up residence nearby. On the first day I was there one would come bombing across the colony every 20 minutes or so hoping to catch a bird. It seemed to be fairly successful. The first sign of it coming in was all the birds rising off the islands to try and confuse it.

If you were quick you could see the peregrine diving into them before it gets lost on the melee of whirling birds.

Finally, I did manage to find the rare roseate tern. It was tricky to get onto, spending a lot of time on a sandbar off the beach.

Eventually it did come onto the beach area where you could see it a bit better. Smaller than the other terns with an all-dark, slightly down-turned bill and  red-legs. It was also quite aggressive to the other birds around it! Fortunately between myself and the local volunteer we got quite a few other visitors and birder onto it before it flew back out into the bay.

It was the sandwich terns which were the stars though, feeding their ever-growing progeny.