Ramsey Island April Island report by RSPB warden Lisa

RSPB volunteer Sarah waiting to go over to Ramsey Island

Island people – Greg is now back from his ‘research trip’ to the Cayman Islands (he owes me big time) and our fabulous 2016 intern Sarah is back for a second season. We will again be heavily reliant on our residential volunteer workforce who come to stay for a week or more in the bungalow under Carn Ysgubor. Last year over 60 different volunteers came to help out, donating 2700 hours of their time to the RSPB.

Lambing – We’ve been lambing for the last 12 days and have had 30 sets of twins and 7 singles so far. It’s all going very smoothly at the moment, which is making me a little nervous! As last year we plan to keep the ewe lambs to add to our grazing flock, to maintain the short sword on the north coast for chough.

Our Manx Shearwaters are back and just about to lay eggs. Both pairs that fledged chicks from the artificial burrows on the north-east corner in 2016 are back in their boxes. You may see us on the slopes here over the next few weeks as we build and install another 50 boxes.

Sensitive Areas – As last year we have chough pairs that have just laid eggs low down in the caves at Mynachdy and Genau.