Gannets Of Grassholm

What a day! What can I say? How can I put things into words? The answer is I don't think you can ...

May be I can do it in a picture. How does a Gannet colony on an island in the middle of the Irish Sea look ... well a bit like this ... but so much bigger ... so much noisier ... and quite a lot smellier!

It was my great pleasure today to accompany several members of RSPB Cymru and the Welsh Assembly Minister responsible for the environment on a trip to Ramsey and Grassholm Islands. I went along as the official photographer for the day.

I have never been to a sea bird colony before, so this was always going to be a trip of many firsts. We were originally going a month or so back, apparently in June it is even more spectacular ... I can only imagine what that must be like now!

We sailed out to Ramsey and then onto Grassholm, which is a good hour out to sea. Whilst the rest of the country basked in 28 degree sunshine, we were enveloped in a sea fog and temperatures around the ten degree mark after a wind chill factor. And then out of the fog loomed Grassholm, it was a surreal sight, every inch covered with nesting Gannets!

One thing learnt on the boat, photography out to see in a small vessel is no easy task! It is akin to jumping up and down on a trampoline. Fortunately, I seem to have pretty good sea legs! There was a lot of shooting and hoping going on. I haven't even scratched the surface of my photo editing yet. I took over 500 photos on the day.

We pretty much saw all the sea birds that were still around ... Kittiwakes, Fulmars, Manx Shearwaters, Puffins, Shags, Guillemots, Great Black Gulls, only the Razorbills had gone.

But the birds were only the half of it ...

Whilst we were out in the boat we got chased by a school of common dolphins. I have never witnessed this with my own eyes before, and to experience it just off the coast of West Wales was quite brilliant. I managed one decent shot of them here, but it was so hard to guess where they would break the surface and add to that the pitch and yaw of the boat.

We had porpoises and seals, including this one eating a ray. It was an utterly absorbing experience.

We went back to Ramsey for lunch and had a guided tour of a part of the island. Where we learnt how successful the Manx Shearwaters were becoming. We saw plenty of the nesting burrows all around the island. The birds spend all day out to see and only return at darkness.

And then all too soon it was time to leave and return home. We had one last treat. A number of Gannets were diving into a shoal of fish a small pod of dolphins were feeding from. Quite incredible to see ...

As we were pulling back into the harbour we saw one of the seals deciding there was an easier way of getting around.... one last excellent memory to take away!

I almost chose this Gannet shot as the blip, but this one sums up the bleakness of the location!

There are more photos in this flickr set. I'll be adding more to it over the coming weeks.

PS .. have a look at the GeoLocation of this blip ... mildly amusing!