We had our first boats and therefore first visitors for a
week today. I did take a video of the
harbour and the water rushing through the axe in the time between but didn’t
realise that if I videoed in portrait view I wouldn’t be able to turn it round
on the computer! Lesson learnt. Here it is regardless.
I’m sure that it was much rougher when I watched it from the
office window and that it calmed by the time I walked down to the harbour wall.
It definitely didn’t look quite as impressive as I’d hoped!
Anyway, it was my day off as usual on Friday and I
spent as long as I could without feeling idle reading ‘The World of Spiders’ by
Bristow in bed. Once up I managed to coax myself into studying for a bit before
phoning my parents, writing some e-mails, reading some reports on seabirds and
spiders (two of my favourite things!),making some bread…
…and studying some more before deciding that I really needed
some fresh air. I headed up Carn Ysgubor
behind the bungalow and searched under a lot of rocks stones and in some of the
vegetation for spiders. I didn’t find anything unusual, just an awful lot of Segestria senoculata females and several
very beautiful Textrix denticulata
spiders. I also bumped into the three red deer stags who have already grown a
fair bit of their antlers back.
I wandered south trying to find somewhere out of the wind
and ended up sitting at Abermyharan for a while. Abermyharan can be a really
good little spot for rarities and although not particularly rare I did see my
first ever sedge warbler. It was a really shy bird but after a while of sitting
and monitoring for signs of movement in the undergrowth I eventually got a
really good look at it. It’s great being a relatively new birder as I get to
see new things all the time and birds that seem quite commonplace for others
are still really exciting for me.
Saturday was again another no boat day and with the
volunteers given a day off I managed to catch up on some reading, office work
and painted the gloss skirting boards of the ‘VIP toilet’! Every day here is
different! I also of course ID’d some more of my spider specimens plus did some
indoor yoga, cleaned my room and tried to be productive with regards to OU.
I’ve been trying to improve my botanical ID skills recently
(there’s a lot to improve on) and have been sketching and making notes about
the various flowers that are popping up all over Ramsey. I’m trying not to
ignore anything and am including even the familiar flowers like primrose and
bluebell. I’m struggling to keep up with the rate things are growing and am
particularly interested to find out what this is soon.
It’s growing by a large bank of garlic which is flowering at
the moment and smells amazing. I’ve only seen it growing in the one place so
far.
With the rabbit population at a low after a long myxamatosis
outbreak the island’s wildflowers are really getting a chance to thrive. Ramsey
already looks completely different to how I saw it last year and I love the
change.
Although very windy Sunday was bright and sunny, so
sunny that at one sheltered point I stripped down to a t-shirt and lathered on
the sunscreen. As soon as I rounded the corner I knew it was a mistake. Lulled
into a false sense of security!
(View of Carn Llidi on the mainland from the base of Foel
Fawr.)
I spent the morning searching the scree banks of Foel Fawr
for one of Britain’s rarer spiders Clubiona
genevensis. It’s only found in a few locations in Britain, the scillies,
skokholm, the Lleyn peninsula and of course Ramsey island. It’s only about 3- 5
mm in length but has quite distinctive chevron markings on its abdomen and an
epigyne (female part) that looks like a monkey…sort of. It luckily didn’t take
me long to find some as I knew where to look from last year. I found 3 adult
females guarding eggs and 2 adult females without eggs. I also found one of my
favourite spiders Neon robustus. They
look really dull and brown until you look at them under a lens. Under the lens
the light catches them in a way that their abdomens shimmer like light catching
spilt oil.
(View of Carn Llidi on the mainland from the base of Foel
Fawr.)
I spent the morning searching the scree banks of Foel Fawr
for one of Britain’s rarer spiders Clubiona
genevensis. It’s only found in a few locations in Britain, the scillies,
skokholm, the Lleyn peninsula and of course Ramsey island. It’s only about 3- 5
mm in length but has quite distinctive chevron markings on its abdomen and an
epigyne (female part) that looks like a monkey…sort of. It luckily didn’t take
me long to find some as I knew where to look from last year. I found 3 adult
females guarding eggs and 2 adult females without eggs. I also found one of my
favourite spiders Neon robustus. They
look really dull and brown until you look at them under a lens. Under the lens
the light catches them in a way that their abdomens shimmer like light catching
spilt oil.
(Photograph of two chough courtesy of my dad! His website can be found here…http://www.motleyphotography.co.uk/info.html and here...www.flickr.com/phtos/motleyphotography)
It was also the last day for the May rotation of mammal ink
traps and whist down at the harbour I couldn’t resist the urge to take a few
pictures of the Bitches and Whelps reef whilst it was a little bit choppy. As
with the harbour video I was a little disappointed at how calm it all looked!
After
work I settled in with my microscope and managed to identify my first mini
money spider at just 1.8mm. I’ll have to get it checked and verified but I feel
relatively confident that its Tiso vagans.
Almost feel on my way to being a proper arachnologist!
Today is Monday and also the first day for visitor
boats in a week. It’s always nice to welcome people onto the island again and
the ten people that made it over to the island certainly picked a nice day.
After everyone had scattered across the trails in various directions I nipped
off for a quick look in a spot Lisa said was great for spiders. By the time I
got there most of them had gone back into the undergrowth so I had a little
general search amongst the garlic, bluebells and bracken. Other than Araneus diadematus there didn’t seem to
be a lot about. Rather than make my way back up the cliffs I decided to hop
down onto the rocky beach and boulder hop across. I haven’t been that way
before and yet again gave me a whole different view of Ramsey. After the brief
spidering expedition I went to look at my favourite two chough sites. As far as
I could see they were both feeding young and as well as chough I got to see my
fist birds-foot trefoil of the season.
(Spot the birdsfoot trefoil!)
There were some issues with water supply to the bungalow
yesterday so I didn’t get a great deal else done. Because of all the toing and
froing by the wardens to sort it all out it did mean we got to gather together
in the evening for a dram of whisky by the fire.
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