Return to Seal Island.

View from Southend back towards the 'mountain' on Bardsey Island.

It was lovely to return to Bardsey Island this autumn in time to see the breeding season of the local grey seal colony there. This is a tremendous spectacle - an animal drama with births and deaths, sex and tragedy all interfaced with the gales and high seas that characterize this season.

But first some birds - for Bardsey is famously the home of the Bardsey Bird and Field Observatory (BBFO) which has been monitoring resident and migrant birds since it was established in the 1950s. 

So here are a few birds:

Redstart (probably on its way south for the winter).

One of Bardsey's specialties -  a late chick of the Manx shearwater. Its parents
are gone and it is losing its baby fluff (and some weight), after which it will finally
emerge into the daylight and take to the sky.

Some of the burrows where the
shearwaters  raise their chicks.

Oystercatchers against a sullen sky. 

Rock pipit

Majestic adult gannet - with a two metre wingspan -against a stormy sea.

Another island specialty - a pair of choughs.

And back to the seals - firstly  there is a new encouragement to visitors not to go down onto the shore whilst breeding is ongoing. The sign, written on two washed-up buoys, is in Welsh and English. 

Mother and swimming white-coat pup. (The pup is only a few days old).

Another young pup in the rain.

The BBFO is housed in a Victorian farm house and provides inexpensive but very comfortable
self-catering accommodation on the island as well as acting as a wildlife monitoring centre.  

A handsome female grey seal watching the watchers,

Mother and pup playing in the shallow sea on a calm day.

A large bull courts a lady seal.