This year instead of just going to the Island I helped with some of the events, in other words I volunteered to help out.
I headed into Noss after 11 with a few others and we got a timetable and a name tag, my job for the day was to help out with a guided walk at 1-2 so I went to explore around a bit before the walk.
I first headed into the Pony Pund and I started looking about for flowers, birds weren't really in that big numbers so these were the best thing after.
I was looking in between nettles when I spotted something dark on a leaf of one, I went closer and it was a tiny moth, my camera came out and I tried for a photo so someone might be able to identify it.
Several photos and minutes later I had got my shots and went off to find someone to ID my moth.
I found Glen Tyler and I showed him the photo of my moth, right away he told me it was a Nettle Tap, a micro moth, given its name because it's always on nettles and it looks like an old tap.
My Nettle Tap
Also this Platycheirus manicatus Fly I found on a nettle and it managed to contain its desire to fly off for a while!
So the rest of my time was spent jotting down bird and plant species while trying to stay out of the rain, hard to do when most of the things are in the rain!
One thing that caught a few people's eyes was a large flock of Terns (Tirricks) that flew up, there was an estimated count of about 80 and I got my camera up for a later count.
Terns out (see what I did there), there was over 130 Arctic Terns, way more than I expected!!
Arctic Terns, at least 133!!
It was just before two and people were turning up for the guided walk, Craig (one of the wardens on Noss) had his scope on a pair of Arctic Terns (Tirricks) and with them was a single chick!! He let me have a look and it was my first one!
The group had assembled and a few of them had a look at the baby Tern, there was three of us leading this walk; Craig, Chris (from the Bressay History group) and myself.
Chris started the walk off by talking a bit about the ancient chapel outside of the Pony Pund and then we headed off towards Papil Geo.
Throughout the walk I said a bit about the birds and the wild flowers, my knowledge came in handy while we were out.
We even managed to get a few birds while out, like a Blackbird and some good views of two Snipe! and a bit of Noss' history was revealed to us by Chris.
Finally we came back to the Pund with the group and I took everyone to see the Nettle Tap.
The micro moth was still sat on its same leaf and that ended everyones walk!
The Pony Pund, Bressay and our guided walk group
I still had a while on the island so I spent them soaking and writing stuff in my notebook.
Not really how I thought to spend my afternoon but you can't control the weather! my day was spent well, I enjoyed my time on Noss and I left around 3:15 before heading on a bus to Yell!
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