So how to give you a flavour of islet life…

The sound scape is never quiet – during the day we have several species of terns squabbling away and if you get too close they have a tendency to dive bomb you… and often then poo… the chant is always ‘please don’t poo on me’…

At night there is a switch over from the squabbling terns, to croaky Cory’s shearwater and the bubbling woody woodpecker call of the Monteiro’s storm-petrel.

We are slowly settling into a routine over here on the islet and tends to follow this kind of line:

Morning = nest checks – is there anything in the nest? If it is a storm-petrel, which adults is it in? Is there an egg? We do a full nest check every few days but we are keeping a closer eye on the eggs – yes I have already become a worried mother about the eggs!

Afternoon = (after lunch of course) data entry, working on a final set up for the cameras (which will eventually go into the nests, so we can track what is happening inside too) and other bits and bobs that happen.

Evenings = either relaxing in the house watching a film or reading… or going up to one side of the islet to watch the seabirds coming in – flying so close to you and calling loudly – an awe inspiring time… and then generally once a week we head out in an evening to put up a mist-nest to safely catch these flying birds. The aim here is to catch other stormies across the islet that don’t nest in our artificial nests. It provides a fantastic opportunity to sit and watch the gloamings change to cloudy, still nights – the best weather for mist netting, and sit, impatiently wondering what we will catch!

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We have also been off the islet (first time in about 3 weeks for Alyssa and I!)… to a neighbouring (similar sized) islet to look for pellets from gulls (to see what the gulls are eating) and also to admire a different habitat and plant life :).

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#Team 2 arrived safely last week and brought an amazing amount of energy to the islet – helping us get everything done and allowing Alyssa and I to have a bit of time off too :).

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Look forward to welcoming another team member tomorrow (weather permitting!) and already excited to see data coming in… and to seeing what it is all saying!

For now, greetings from a very gusty islet!

Hannah 🙂