June

Reserve Officer for Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) on the Island of Unst, Shetland.

After the glorious month of May, June has been notable for the number of good days being countable on one hand. We have had torrential rain, gales, mist, everything. The summer solstice has now passed, and it is so light at night you can read a newspaper at midnight (see photo below)!

Walking back to the shore station one cloudy and windy evening I got a bit of a surprise to see a large ship mored in Burrafirth, it turned out to be the Pharos, the Northern Lighthouse Boards new ship for servicing lighthouses and navigation buoys. The next morning I was even more surprised to find a helicopter parked outside! This helicopter is from the Pharos, and lands on the foredeck.

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Midnight looking north from the shore station	The Northern Lighthouse boards new ship - Pharos	NLB helicopter
NLB helicopter	Pharos

Counting of the Gannets, Kittiwakes and Divers has continued, and Guillemot/Razorbill and Fulmar counts have also been done. The bad weather meant that these counts were undertaken rather irregularly, but at least they have been done. I even saw a Razorbill chick (24th) which was great. Eiders are all over the place with chicks, it's amusing to see the chicks feeding alongside their parents and even diving for food too!

This month I have been lucky enough to have a volunteer on work experience working with me. Chris has been a great help assisting with the monitoring counts, helping with rodent monitoring stations, and talking to visitors to the reserve. Only a shame the weather hasn't been better for his visit!

Dramatic sky above the neap	Stone bridge and stream	Puffin and thrift
Chris the volunteer at Humla stacks	Eiders and chicks	Muckle Flugga

The occasional beakfull of sandeels is being brought in by Puffins, which is good to see, although we are yet to see how well the chicks do, for the last few years the food shortage has resulted in weak poor condition chicks fledging, which stand little chance for their first winter.

Monitoring Guillemots with puffins at your feet	Puffin with sandeels	Gannet
Frog	Arctic Skua	Bonxie chick
Bonxie on a bombing run!	Common Gull	6 foot across 8 foot deep hole in the peat, like a sink hole.

During the month the north isles ranger Rory had a birthday party, on the same day as the Baltasound regatta. The yoal races were interesting to watch and there was a great atmosphere. The party went really well too, we had a keg of beer from the local Valhala brewery, 70 pints, which were finished by about 4am! We also had a barbeque and a bombfire to keep warm around, and had a great night. Some crazy fools even decided to go for a midnight swim!

Baltasound regatta, yoal races	Midnight swim - nutters!	Wheatear with food, in the rain
4cm of gravel	2cm of charcoal	A layer of sphagnum
Fill with peat	Top off with surface sphagnum, bogarium completed!	Golden Plover

Whilst there has been bad weather rodent monitoring stations have been put around the reserve, consisting of a piece of pipe, with a chocolate wax block fixed in it to check for teeth marks. We also made a terrarium, with a section of peat bog in it, complete with sundews.