Ranger's blog 2023
May round-up
May saw the start of new events, new cruises and unfortunately limited new weather. But even with predominantly north westerlies hitting Fair Isle, a few rarities, along with plenty of new people (in the shape of cruise passengers) kept us quite busy!
I’ve been back to the school a couple of times now, first to finish constructing the bug hotel. After collecting all the materials with me at the end of last month, the kids got busy making little ‘pods’ of sticks and dried grass in tubes, to go into the hotel once the pallet was cut up and put in place. I came back to add the finishing touches to the construction, some stones at the bottom, some more material in between the pods, and then some moss to top it all off! Now the weather's
warming up (a little!) we’ll have to check back in and see who’s staying in there.
All the children making the ‘pods’ [by Gillian Maxwell], all of us filling the pallet [by George], and the final product! [By Sally Kunzig]
With the increase in temperature a lot of flowers are now in bloom here. Almost out of my own curiosity, I suggested a plant and flower ID and pressing activity. With both my plant guides in hand, I was fortunate to find them mostly redundant as Freyja, the eldest student in the school, really knows her stuff and almost every plant we picked and came across, she was able to identify! It’s safe to say I was definitely being taught, rather than teaching, this time - thank you Freyja!
Back at school, the kids organised the samples onto pressing paper, and they’re currently sitting under a couple of heavy books. Once pressed, they’ll be laminated to keep on show.
The kids and Sally collecting flowers [by Gillian Maxwell], the final collection of plants [by Gillian Maxwell], Cuckooflower [by Sally Kunzig]
I did get a chance to show off my own expertise with the kids at the end of the month. A couple years ago I assisted on a citizen science project called the Big Seaweed Search. Anyone around the UK with access to a rocky shore is able to take part, and the kids agreed it was time to add Fair Isle to the map! We headed down to Muckle Uri Geo at low tide, and formed a survey line to find all the different species of seaweed that reside on the rocks and in the tide pools.
We found 6 different species of seaweed on the shore that we were looking for in the guides, and also saw that a couple of the wrack species had hybridised making some identification a little more tricky! I’m happy to say that the kids (and teacher!) all left with a greater knowledge of the seaweeds we find here, and had assisted in a citizen science project!
Sally and the kids in Muckle Uri Geo seaweed spotting [by Gillian Maxwell]
The cruise ships have been coming in thick and fast this last month. We had eight ships actually landing during the month. The smallest was the first arrival of Greg Mortimer bringing only 41 passengers ashore, in comparison the largest was Seabourn Venture with 170 passengers visiting Fair Isle. My role with cruise ships is taking passengers (and guides) on a bird walk up Buness to see the puffins there up close, as well as informing them about the bird observatory and island life.
Most years, puffins on the edge of cliffs is a guarantee, and fortunately there have been birds flying around and ducking in and out of burrows for all to see. However this year, although we saw great numbers of puffins back on land earlier in April, they have yet to decide to lounge around on the edge of the cliffs, instead choosing to be rafting on the water at the base of the cliffs, or even just heading back out to sea! Luckily puffins here are very curious to see what the group of
people in the same colour jackets are doing at the top of the cliff, so most of the visits have had a steady stream of puffins returning to the tops of cliffs to amuse the guests - thankfully!
Cruise ship passengers and the first puffin of the morning, another cruise ship visit with more puffins on Buness, Greg Mortimer moored outside North Haven and Seabourn Venture with a zodiac in North Haven [by Sally Kunzig]
Ask anyone who was on Fair Isle this May what the best day was and I think they’d all collectively say the 22nd! The day itself didn’t look like much, a little calmer in the winds compared to the previous week, but I can safely say that the obs team were gunning for something exciting, as the majority of May has seen westerlies ploughing through the island, making it quite tricky for any rarities to arrive. Or so we thought. The morning trap round brought the first surprise –
a Western Subalpine Warbler! Already in high spirits for the day, the rest of the team set off for census. Just before midday the shout went out that there were two bull Orca coasting along the east cliffs. We later find out that this was Hulk and Nótt, two bulls that have visited Fair Isle a handful of times before. All of us rushed to various points along the south east coastline and were able to get some fantastic views of these magnificent creatures. It was a real treat and the first
time I had seen an Orca, so I was especially pleased! After following them south along the cliffs, and running much more than any of us really want to, Hulk and Nótt were last seen heading south out of South Harbour, and later that day picked up off Orkney. Five minutes into having lunch and Alex gets a message there's an unringed Subalpine Warbler sp. hanging around Setter, so very quickly the team head out again to trap it before resuming census. We’re still waiting to hear back about
DNA confirmation of the species of the second Subalpine, but we narrowed it down to between Western and Moltoni’s. Census resumes and I don’t think anyone expected anything else interesting to appear…the message ‘SNOWY OWL’ pops up in the group chat, and suddenly I'm picking up everyone that will fit in the car to head up to see the owl at Homisdale. Alex was the one to spot it, the rest of the obs team were second on the scene, but it quickly turned into the biggest twitch that the
island has seen for the last few years. Over 20 people came up to see the bird, which was quite understandable, it was a pristine adult male, a bright gleaming white spot among the dark vegetation in the north. We all decided then that was quite enough for the day, the rest of the team finished census around 6pm, potentially one of the longest and most broken up census that’s happened in quite a while. Absolutely worth it! Keep checking our ‘Latest sightings’ page to get these
updates daily!
Alex and Georgia watching Hulk and Nótt off Meoness [by Patrick Safford], the big twitch for the Snowy owl [by Georgia Platt]
May also saw our first changeover of volunteers. Patrick departed on the 24th and Dan arrived on the 29th, to finish spring census and assist in the start of seabird work. So far we’ve already done our first visit to the Razorbills down at Easter Lother, which required Alex, Georgia and I to don our harnesses and traverse the via ferrata system. Razorbill nest locations were mapped out by locating an egg, or an adult incubating one. We found 40 nests and we’ll be back next
month to ring and count chicks, to get an estimate of success and productivity at the site. Similarly, the Gannet and Guillemot productivity monitoring has started. Georgia has been out to the north-west cliffs to map and check how many Gannets are on nests, hopefully incubating, and when the chicks arrive, how many of them fledge. I’ve got the Guillemots, checking for the same things, I just fortunately don’t have to hike up the west cliffs to see them! Guillemots have a much
shorter incubation and chick rearing period to Gannets, so I’m visiting them every 2-3 days, compared to Georgia visiting the Gannets every 7-10 days. Other counts (Shags etc) have started but the first two weeks of June will see the majority of seabird monitoring begin.
First survey of Da Swadin Guillemots, and Sally, Alex and Georgia in the Easter Lother Razorbill nest plot, a Razorbill nest (egg) and adult, and a close up Razorbill egg [by Sally Kunzig]
Although the seabirds are on eggs, some of our waders have already hatched. Lapwings are one the first chicks of the season, as such they’re also the first chicks to ring! Many wader chicks have a very camouflaged downy feather when they first hatch, to give them extra protection hiding in the wetlands. Lapwing chicks are no different, so require us to stand a couple of fields away and view the chicks first at a distance, to get an idea for where they are. Then when we get into the
field with the chicks, if we can’t find where they’ve hunkered down to not be seen, we can use the thermal scope to (hopefully) pick them out of the grass and mud. So far we think we’ve ringed chicks from over half the broods on the island, a total of 24 chicks. A couple more warmish days in the future should mean we can find and ring chicks in the final couple of broods left!
Sally and Georgia ringing Lapwing chicks [by Patrick Safford], a Lapwing chick [by Sally Kunzig]
And, in observatory news, the modules have started to arrive back on Fair Isle! We’ve been seeing workmen getting ready to start affixing them to the building and lots more large vehicles on the island to move the modules across the haven. Fingers crossed the weather stays nice to keep up the good work!
Written by Sally Kunzig, Ranger. All photos used with permission.
Orca and Snowy Owl [Sally Kunzig]
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April round-up
Hello everyone!
We’re back! I’m Sally, the ranger for this year and I hope to give everyone reading this a bit of an insight into the current bird-obs lifestyle here in Fair Isle. While we’re now in May, right in the midst of spring migration, and even the start of seabird monitoring, this post is a round-up of what we’ve been getting up to since the full team made it to Fair Isle at the end of March.
My first view of Fair Isle, and South Lighthouse (by Sally)
Alex, our acting warden, and Georgia, our assistant warden, have returned this spring making this their 4th year on Fair Isle! They arrived on the 22nd of March, in classic Fair Isle style, with rain and gale force winds! As the bird observatory building is still under construction, this is also the 4th season having the team living down at South Lighthouse. I arrived a couple of days later on the 27th of March, in much calmer (if a bit colder) conditions.
I spent the first week or so familiarising myself with Fair Isle, being guided around the crofts, having a talk at the museum and shown where all the biosecurity boxes are on the island (more on that in a bit!). It’s very easy to see the beauty of Fair Isle, and I’m excited to see all the little changes that happen with the coming of warmer weather!
The 31st of March saw our final team member arrive - Patrick, our long-term volunteer, who will be staying with us until the end of spring census. With the whole team in Isle, the first two days of April were spent tracing the 3 census routes on the island, where I quickly realised there are more place names on this island than I am likely to visit places in my life! The map with all the names of each geo and cliff on the island has been very useful! If you’ve been following
our updates on the ‘Latest Sightings’ page, you will have seen our year list soar through the month of April. At the end of March we had 85 species on our year list, and by the end of April we reached 129!
Warden team after going through the SE census route, and looking into Swarzie Geo (by Sally)
With census rolling on, calm afternoons became ‘repairs and maintenance’ time. Of the 8 Heligoland traps on the island, only 4 are currently in use, but even they needed a bit of TLC after the winter storms. A lot of stitching of panels and nailing them in place was done on our Plantation trap, now with all the side pieces complete and only the roof to go! We reinflated our semi-rigid boat that we use to get closer to our seabird populations for monitoring.
As simple as saying ‘we inflated the boat’ sounds, it required us to put the floor in first, which took a surprising amount of thinking to work out how. Luckily YouTube and older models’ manuals were our saviour - as was a good hard kick! - and the boat is happily in the water. There was even a good enough weather window for Alex and Georgia to take it out on a test drive! We also got out and fixed the fence around our local oysterplant patch in Muckle Uri Geo near South Light.
This fence has been put up for over 20 years to maintain and increase the oysterplant patch by not letting the sheep graze on it. Looking at the current fence size compared to one in 2001 showed us that the area that the oysterplant grows in has almost doubled since then (see more here). If you’re not currently following us on social media, then you’re missing out on our #FairIsleFriday posts, where
I have a look through our old photos to showcase different parts of Fair Isle’s history, with the Obs and without!
Georgia rolling out the oysterplant sheep fence, and Georgia and Alex mending the Plantation trap (by Sally). Alex pointing back to Buness on the boat (by Georgia).
Some seabird monitoring kicked off in April with a couple of early mornings where we each took a section of the east cliffs to shout “TYSTIE!” down them, intriguing every tystie in the area onto the water so we can count them, as well as confusing every other animal in the vicinity! The earliest count was on a particularly swelly day, hence going out for a second time and getting a total of 194 breeding plumage birds. Pretty consistent numbers with recent years, a good sign!
Also in preparation for other seabird monitoring to start again, we had our annual check of our Via Ferrata cliff access systems. After an equipment training session for Patrick and I, we were each led down a cliff system by Will, who was checking the system as we went. Ever grateful I have a head for heights, it was a great experience to go down the systems just to see the sights! Looking forward to the next time where it will be to look at seabirds!
Via ferrata system at Gunnawark with Alex Penn, and view from the bottom of Gunnawark (by Sally)
On the ranger side of things, I’ve been preparing myself for the tourist season by visiting the museum on the island and learning about some of the fantastic history here. I’m constantly astounded by the ingenuity of all the islanders throughout history, what with people handmaking all the furniture pieces with great detailing and artistry, or creating winch and pulley systems for getting sheep (and people) up and down Sheep Rock (though why someone decided that was perfect
pastureland is beyond me!), the absolutely gorgeous designs in Fair Isle knitted products, and the bravery of everyone that assisted with all the numerous shipwrecks that have occurred throughout the ages. There are some fantastic stories to be told from the museum here, and if you’re ever visiting Fair Isle, I would highly recommend a stop there! Apart from history, I’ve also been brushing up on my local flora and fauna knowledge. Now that some of our plants are starting to
flower it’s getting a lot easier to use my guidebook! On the non-birdy fauna side of things, we have a Shorewatch site here at South Light where I’ve been conducting regular watches for cetaceans (and other marine mammals). Unfortunately, even with calm seas, the only cetaceans so far have been a couple of harbour porpoises (outside of survey effort time, spotted by Patrick). I’m looking forward to later in the season, with hopefully more calm seas, and more fins in the water.
I’ve also performed a couple of grey seal counts along the SW cliffs to see if there’s much change in our population when it’s not pupping season. The first count was a particularly busy day with Muckle Geo o’ Hoini having nearly 100 seals hauled out on the beach!
Muckle Geo o’ Hoini grey seal haul out, looking for fins off South Light, and some of our first flowering thrift (by Sally)
The biosecurity monitoring has been running throughout the winter months, but now the ranger is back in Fair Isle I get to take over for the summer months. We have Fair Isle field mice and house mice present on the island, not causing any problems for our breeding birds. Monitoring boxes have been placed around potential access points to the island to ensure that if any harmful invasive non-native species get onto the island (i.e. rats), we will quickly be able to assess their
whereabouts and enact a plan to eradicate them. Fortunately, both the March and April checks have shown no sign of anything unexpected - just different mice species enjoying some chocolate flavoured wax!
An oh so glamorous biosecurity box! (by Sally)
As the ranger, I also get to help out with the school, planning some outdoor educational sessions and assisting where I can. It was great to join in last week with Da Voar Redd Up, Shetland’s clean-up and litter picking event. I joined a couple of the teaching staff and the three eldest schoolchildren in going around the crofts and down to the geos around Skadan (by South Light), collecting all the bruck that we found in all the burns, ditches and on the beach.
We also conducted a marine litter survey of all the litter that was found on the beaches. Some notable finds are in the images below. After a quick pit-stop at Houll for cakes (thank you Eileen!) and being joined by the nursery kids, we finished up back at the school with a total of six bin bags filled with bruck! This week we’ve started a new project, building a bug hotel at the school, hopefully to be populated with lots of interesting beasties - more news on that later in the year.
A large plastic drinks bottle from potentially Russia, a cardboard bottle from the USA and a boot! (by Sally)
Beach cleaning at Muckle Uri Geo, and beach cleaning at South Harbour (by Pat Thomson). Full Da Voar Redd Up team heading back to school (by Sally)
I think I speak for everyone when I say we’re looking forward to see what May brings. We’ve already had a couple of rare sightings (and rings) in the books, and a week of easterlies can only be good news, right? More tourists and the arrival of cruise ships are new events for this month to come, fingers crossed for some good weather too!
Great end to the month having puffins back on land and starting their nesting building (by Sally)
Written by Sally Kunzig, Ranger. All photos used with permission.