The top 5 stories from the past few weeks

Here are the top 5 stories from the past few weeks. I've almost certainly forgotten lots of stuff, but there's not much I can do about that really, so enjoy!

Brownsman

Last year, Steely switched 2 Inner Farne wardens for 2 Brownsman wardens, in order to mix up the teams a bit, and to give people experience working on both islands. It worked really well last year, so Steely decided to give it a go again this year. So last week me and Graeme from Inner Farne switched with Wez and Matt from Brownsman. There are many differences between the 2 islands, the key ones being that there are only 5 of us here (when all of us are here), as opposed to the 7 of us on Inner Farne (including the 2 research students). So it’s a lot quieter and there is a much more relaxed atmosphere, which is a nice change, although I do miss the lifestyle on Inner Farne sometimes! But less people doesn’t mean less fun! Also, this island is a lot more birdy. Jason (the Senior Warden on this island) is a big birdwatcher. He was here last year so he knows a lot about all of the birds here, and he got a restricted C bird ringing permit, which means he can ring all the seabirds he likes. Then there’s Mark, who is also an awesome bird watcher and who has a full C permit, so he can ring everything but seabirds (and has done some cool things, like ringing hummingbirds!). So I get to do lots of bird ringing on this island, which I really enjoy, and I also get the opportunity to learn lots about birds from their big juicy brains!! At the moment, I’m trying to learn to identify waders, which is proving to be very difficult. I can ID them when they’re close by, but that rarely happens. Most of the time we see waders it’s from afar, so I need to learn to ID them by size, shape etc. and I need all the help I can get! Another good point about living on Brownsman is that you work on a different island. We live on Brownsman, but we work on Staple Island, and we do visitor work in the morning rather than the afternoon, which I quite like!


August

Unfortunately for me, my time here is almost up. My contract runs out at the end of July, and I haven’t found another job for when I finish here. There is a chance that I’ll be asked to stay on and work with the Grey Seals, which I would really love to do but I feel that it’s unlikely to happen, as I think that the people here on the 6 month contract will be offered the position first and I don’t see why anyone would turn down an opportunity like that! But we should be finding out soon who’s going to be staying on for that and I will blog about it as soon as I find out! However, as August and the time for me to leave the best job I’ve had draws ever closer, I came up with a brilliant idea! Why don’t I stay here! I’ve asked Steely if it would be ok for me to stay on here in August. I wouldn’t be paid during August if I were to stay on but it would give me more time to look for a job over the winter, and I would be gaining more experience as I do so! I need to talk to Steely about it as nothing is official yet, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to stay here. Either way, I want to come back next year, so I only need to find a job until March 2011. Wish me luck!


Birds

Most of the birds here are leaving as you read this! The Eiders were the first to go. No more left now, but we see them all quite frequently whenever we go to Seahouses, as they all hang around in the harbour there. There are no more Guillemots around anymore apart from the odd one or two hanging around on the cliffs, but for the most part, they’re long gone. The Razorbills too have mostly disappeared, which upsets me quite a bit, as they were my favourite! There are still a couple left with chicks though, which is good! There are still a good number of Kittiwake chicks hanging around, although they’re all ready to fledge now really, so in the next couple of weeks they’ll all be gone too. Same story with the Shags really, although they might be around a little bit longer and some chicks are still quite fluffy. The Arctic, Common and Sandwich Terns all have big chicks now, which are getting ready to fledge soon as well! Most of them can fly so I reckon they’ll be gone in the next few weeks as well. The Puffins are already mostly gone! Almost all of the Puffins have chicks now, which are either ready to fledge, or have already fledged. There are still some young chicks, so the Puffins will be around a bit longer, but again in the next couple of weeks they’ll have gone too. Pretty soon there’s going to be nothing left! But we’ll get a lot more birds coming through here on their migrations, which is why I want to stay on really! It also means I’ll get to see the last few birds leave!


Recreation

There have been quite a few recreational activities happening of late! All of the wardens (apart from Steely) and the 2 research students went on a trip out to Newcastle one night last week to celebrate several people’s birthdays, which was really fun! It’s been quite a while since any of us went out anywhere, so I think it was a very enjoyable night for all involved! The only part that wasn’t fun was the next day! We all stayed over at Jamie’s house in Newcastle (as he still has his University house), which involved sleeping on sofas and floors…not so comfortable! Luckily for me, it was my day off the next day, so I didn’t have to get up too early to get back for work. However, it did mean that me and Tom (it was his day off as well) had to get the bus back from Newcastle to Seahouses (a 2 and a half hour journey) as there weren’t enough spaces in the cars for all of us. Tomorrow, we are all (possibly) going bowling for another birthday celebration, but this is not yet confirmed, we might just go to the pub instead I think. Also, on the 28th July we are all going paintballing with the boatmen! I’m really looking forward to it as I’ve never been before, but I’m also scared as I’m told it hurts quite a bit! It’s going to be really fun though! Unfortunately though, the research students will have left by then, which is bad because Anna goes shooting, so she would have been an awesome person to stick with! Also, due to weather conditions, the Brownsman team (which in this case includes me) went over to Inner Farne to have a more lively evening, and got stuck on the island for a few days! It was really good fun though, we played rounder’s and quick cricket (both of which I was terrible at) and did foolish things like making a human pyramid!! So again, lots of fun was had by all. But (again) this involved sleeping on the floor. This time at least we had mattresses to sleep on, including me, as I had to give someone else my bed when I moved over to Brownsman.


Weather

The weather has generally been crap for the past week or so, with strong winds and spring tides causing problems once again. We’ve also seen a lot more rain recently than we have the rest of the time that I’ve been here really! We keep getting massive downpours of rain, which has good and bad points really. It means we can’t really get off the islands, as it’s very hard to see where you’re going in the rain, but the rain has started to re-fill the ponds on both islands, so hopefully, we’ll see more birds around them now! The rain is quite bad for the Puffins though, as too much will flood their burrows, but we haven’t had a lot of that yet, so we’re hoping the rain doesn’t continue in this way. Had some sunshine, but not as much as I would like! Let’s hope that we get more!

Thanks for reading, hopefully I’ll see you all soon!