Seabirds, swallows and sunshine

Wow! Where does three weeks go!
Had an amazing holiday with the dive club down in Skomer - perfect weather, calm sea, wonderful people and great wildlife. I got to do five dives, see my first wreck, some lovely fishes and ring storm petrels and manx shearwater overnight on Skomer - something I've always wanted to do.

On return I ringed some baby swallows at a stable and took part in the annual Canada goose ringing at Chew Valley Lake. I also reported on the translocation of young cirl buntings by the RSPB from Devon to Cornwall - soon to appear on the BBC Radio 4's Savings Species.

Meanwhile, my work with the Bristol Dinosaur Project is going well - I've successfully visited two schools now trying out some ideas and have been getting to grips with the website and HTML coding today. I just can't do the coding so have resorted to using Dreamweaver - I'm too much of a visual learner to do without it!

Have been enjoying watching parties of swifts screaming over Clifton in the past few days. On the weekend  while ringing on the Severn Estuary I saw streams of swifts moving through south - no doubt birds all ready on the move. It only seems like yesterday they were arriving.


Me with an manx shearwater (left) and a baby swallow (right)

Reporting for BBC Savings Species

I had an early start today but on a plus side managed to hear the full dawn chorus from my flat as I got ready! Blackbirds and robins were blasting away! I got picked up by Andrew Dawes, BBC at 6am and we travelled down the RSPB's Pulborough Brooks to record the release of some very rare insects, field crickets. It was a brilliant morning and I spent it interviewing contributors involved with the translocation project and met some very nice and passionate people at the same time. I hadn't realised it at the time but I released the very first field cricket at Pulborough for the first time in history!! An awesome moment indeed! The piece is aired on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 11am and again Thursday 9pm. www.bbc.co.uk/savingspecies

Meanwhile, a cuckoo called and flew nearby, the scratchy songs of whitethroats could be heard and great spotted woodpeckers drummed throughout the morning.

We then moved on to another RSPB site where we released some more field crickets, including two full adult females - the have a beautiful golden sheen! It was wonderful seeing them being translocated and successfully released.

Here is an adult female field cricket just after release - she's as rare as gold dust, which also looks like what has been sprinkled over her body! This translocated individual was soon looking for somewhere to live in the soft, spongy grass/soil.