This was the first entire week of my stay when we had all scheduled boats running. The weather has been lovely and even hot at times, giving even more excuses to go swimming in the sea, either before or after our day visitors have been and gone.

The work to control the spread of bracken across the island is now well under way and we spent time scything patches in some of the sheep fields. This is quite hot work in the heat of the day but just the sort of exercise I like.

Whilst bird surveys have largely come to an end, that isn’t the end of the bird-related work or interest on the island. One of the main ongoing tasks for the next few weeks will be weighing the Manx shearwater chicks in the nest boxes. Whilst this task will continue well after I have left the island, and therefore isn’t really my task, I was there for the first weekly weighing and will hopefully pop along for the next few.

Another bird related activity this week was going to the seabird cliffs on the west coast of the island in the evening and watching the guillemot chicks fledging from the narrow ledges upon which they have been reared. They make a ‘willocking’ call as they are about to jump; their parents below encouraging them to make that first leap. They can’t fly when they go and simply fall to the water, hopefully missing the rocks on the way down. We drew a blank on the first visit but had some success on the second with quite a few plopping into the water as we watched from a distance.

Lastly, I had a day off the island on Friday and spent it walking the Pembrokeshire Coast Path from St Non’s to St Justinian’s. It wasn’t the longest of walks but given the summer temperatures, it seemed long enough. I stopped for some time on the path opposite Ramsey Island, watching the harbour porpoise in the ebbing tide as it flows into St Bride’s Bay.