It was a lovely day for
the 20 people I had organised to visit the Copeland Island for the day and no
one was sick on the journey over. They were escorted over by Ron and Brenda who
would be telling them about the history of the island and after lunch, then
taking them on a tour of it. So let
me take you with us to see some of the things they saw. Firstly I will start with a video.
It can be accessed at
http://youtu.be/jfkHbP3DUq0
If there is a black space below, click it and the video will appear.
Well
they are safely arrived apart from Jimmy who forgot to come! These are some shots of the group gingerly
making their way up to the house. Wesley
and I had gone down to great them.
This is Wesley on the right welcoming the group to the
island.
It
is quite a climb up to the house as it is on top of the island but we all took
our time seeing different aspects of nature on the way up.
It
was just about lunchtime when we arrived at the house and everyone decided to
have lunch before the tour.
This
is the group with Ron telling them about the history of the island and these next 4 shots are of photographs that he showed the them from the 1950's.
When we
were standing listening to Ron, both the Peregrines were squawking away in the distance
and we also heard a Cuckoo several times.
There had not been a Cuckoo on the island for several years.
There
were a lot of Ladybirds on the plants and the group were thrilled so see swaths
of Pink Campion in all directions. You can
just see one of the bird
traps in the distance in this shot.
Going
round the island enabled them to see all the nesting gulls and in this shot, it
is a Herring Gull, but they also saw Black headed, Common, Lesser Black backed and 4 Great Black backed
Gulls sitting on the rocks
We
were thrilled to see our first Eider ducks with their ducklings. Many of the Eiders were still sitting on
their eggs.
Of
course all the gulls rose when we were remotely near their area.
We
found this Peacock Butterfly on a wall as well as seeing a few Green veined butterflies.
Everyone
always loves the bunnies that are everywhere and we are glad of them as they
eat the grass which means a bit less mowing on some of the paths.
We
saw numerous Wheatear but I will show you more on
Wednesday of this week.
Lesser
Black backed Gull
Herring
Gull
Pheasant walking among the Bluebells and Bladder Campion.
These
were so far away that the shots of these Peregrines look like silhouettes.
When
we were standing on top of a cliff and looking over to Mew Island, 4 Puffins
flew into the sound (bit of water between the 2 islands). These were the first Puffins to arrive near
the island so we were all thrilled.
Then
we heard and saw the Cuckoo albeit quite a distance away and I have added the 2
shots that we saw the other day that Ian Enlander gave me to use (at the end of this post) so that the
group when they look at this post, will see the Cuckoo better.
We
returned to the house, Wesley had been busy ringing in our absence so he
divided the group into 2 and took them into the Laboratory to explain why
ringing was important in research, how ringers were trained and then showed
them a bird being ringed. The group were
fascinated.
We
have this board in the Laboratory and all the sites for the mist nets etc are on
the board and when a net is erected, the relevant marker is put on the board at
that position.
These
bags are all colour coded now and names with the different sites on them with
the length of netting inside them. Not
all nets are the same length, depends on their position on the island. The 2 poles for each net are kept at the sites.
This
is a Sedge Warbler that Wesley was showing the group and having ringed it, we often
take it outside for a photo before release.
The
other group saw a Spotted Flycatcher being ringed.
As
I said, I have added these in as some of you may not have seen them in last
week’s post but mainly for the groups benefit.
Thanks Ian again.
It
was all too short a visit however everyone enjoyed the experience and I know of
at least 3 people who have joined the Copeland Bird Observatory because of
being here and next year hope to come out for a weekend.
Tomorrow,
I will continue with showing you the birds I saw after they left.
Thank
you for visiting and also for leaving comments on any of my posts.
