– view to the southwest – bardsey island – gouache & graphite

A week (19th-26th sept) on Bardsey with Kim Atkinson & Darren Woodhead as part of the BTO/SWLA flight lines project, sketching activities around the bird observatory.
Very low key bird wise which may have been for the best… forcing us to look more at the surroundings and the people at work.

– mark extracting a blackcap – bardsey island – gouache & ink pen

– mark ringing a coal tit – bardsey island – gouache

Pretty low numbers of birds being caught, mainly young goldcrests and chiffchaffs.

Tail end of the surveying of the manx shearwater burrows, most of them had gone to see but we stalked Mark, one of the assistant wardens as he went about his work.  Shoving his arm down lots of burrows and coming out with 2 well feathered young, nearly ready to go, but also two very fluffy youngsters who had a way to go.

– inspecting the shearwater burrows – bardsey island – gouache & ink pen

The seals have become much more approachable since I spent time on the island in the 80’s and it was great to watch them with their pups. There were also Risso’s dolphins around the island, first time I’ve had prolonged looks at those.

– seals & turnstones – bardsey island