WEEKEND REFLECTIONS AND THE WEEKEND ROUNDUP

Time for Weekend Reflections and The Weekend Roundup and the letter is R and Red. Today I am showing you a RUBY RED ROSE, some RED apples and RED petals, a shop window with a variety of RABBITS in it and my final shot is my STREET PHOTOGRAPHY with a lady wearing RED trousers.

 I hope you enjoyed this post today.

I appreciate your visit and comments.

Copeland Island Visited in June (1)

The last time I visited Copeland Island was in May and these photograph  were taken 1 month exactly from that visit this June.   If you are a regular viewer of my blog you will be able to see the great changes in the wildlife and for those who didn’t manage to see the 6 posts published in June, CLICK HERE for the start of them.  These photographs are mainly of the journey out to the island and what we saw when we first landed.

As you can see from this shot, there were 4 of us.  Wesley who was the Duty Officier and the 2 younger people, Richard and Nina from Glasgow University who were doing research on Herring Gulls. (Lots more about that in future posts)

As we neared the island, I was very excited to see a raft of at least 250 Manx Shearwater.  I had never seen a raft of them before and they were gathering so that when it was dark they could land on the island and go to their burrows.  I have a short video at the end. 

Please remember a lot of photographs where taken on a moving boat!

This is a Common Seal however we also have Grey Seals breeding around the island.

The Arctic Terns had arrived now and we were going to have to be extremely careful not to walk on any of their eggs in the nests when we landed. The noise was ‘something else’ and we were prepared to be attacked.   Once again, in later posts I will be showing you more shots of the Terns but the second clip on the video below is of them and Gulls lifting when the boat approached the jetty.

There were both adult (solid black on head) and 
1^st year Arctic Terns (white above the bill). Sorry it is a out of focus but I wanted you to see the difference!

  

It would have been a very tranquil scene except 

for the screaming birds everywhere.

Oystercatcher and Common Gulls on the rocks.  Both breed on the island and last time I was here, these birds were incubating their eggs and this time I will be showing you their chicks in later posts.

These next few shots were taken as I was walking up to the house with a very heavy rucksack and another bag plus camera round my neck! Mr and Mrs Mallard were out for their evening walk. 

Rabbits are very important on the island because they keep a lot of the grass paths short but also as they dig burrows, these are essential for the Shearwaters to breed in.

There are quite a number of Wrens breed on the island however they are very difficult to photograph but you hear them singing all the time.

After we left our bags in the house, Wesley and I took Richard and Nina to show them round the island.  Richard was amazed at the beauty of the masses of Pink Campion.

Herring Gull behind in front and Lesser Black backed Gull in front.

This is the first of many chicks of a Lesser Black backed Gull

While we were standing on the cliff top we saw these Shags.  Notice the one with its wings out.  I thought it was about to fly but it kept its wings like that for quite a while obviously drying them but I had only even seen them drying their wings on a rock before.

I hope you found this post interesting.  There are LOTS more I have to show you and I am very excited at what discovered the next morning on my way down to the 'loo with the view'.  You will not be disappointed!

On the video of the Manx Shearwaters, Arctic Terns and Gulls I have cut the noise of the boat out and inserted (I hope) suitable music which can be access at

http://youtu.be/rJyL1NKJc78

If there is a black space below, click it and the video will appear.

Thank you for visiting and also to those who leave comments on any of my posts.

Bird Group arrive on Copeland Island for the day in May

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.