![]() It also has good numbers of guillemot, razorbill, shag and kittiwake nesting, and in recent years small numbers of common eider and black guillemot. The island is a Special Protection Area (SPA), particularly because of its great cormorant colony of over 750 birds, which is over 10% of the national population, making it one of the largest colonies in the British Isles. There is one identified shipwreck, a steamship named The Pioneer, which ran ashore in 1878 with a cargo of iron bars when the tow lines to it broke following its rescue from engine failure near the Skerries. Much later a telegraph station was built on the northeastern tip of the island. The remains of the chancel and south transept have been covered by a 19th-century cottage and building. The central tower and the foundations of the nave remain. The ruins of several ecclesiastical buildings are visible on the island, including the remains of a 12th-century church, which has a Grade I heritage listing. Llywelyn the Great issued two charters in 12 confirming the Canons Regular, in possession of the island and the church and manor of Penmon on the mainland of Anglesey. He claimed that, whenever there was strife within the community of monks, a plague of mice would devour all their food. A monastery existed on the island in the late 12th century and was mentioned by Gerald of Wales, who visited the area in 1188. ![]() King Cadwallon ap Cadfan of Gwynedd is said to have sheltered here in around 630 when fleeing an invasion from the Kingdom of Northumbria. In later life, he abandoned his responsibilities there to establish a hermitage on the nearby island, where his remains are thought to rest. The son of Owain Ddantgwyn, a 5th-century ruler of the Kingdom of Gwynedd, and the brother of Saint Einion Frenin, a 5th or 6th-century king in the Llŷn Peninsula, Seiriol founded and governed a class (ecclesiastical settlement) at Penmon on the Anglesey. The project on the Isle of May begins with the 2023 breeding season.The Welsh name, Ynys Seiriol, refers to Saint Seiriol. “In order to really monitor the impact that you’re having and then, of course, that allows you to adapt what you’re doing to reduce the impact.” “Puffins are wonderful, and they are a great start, but actually it’s endless - dolphins to porpoises and the birdlife,” said Rachel McEwen, Chief Sustainability Officer at SSE. “Monitoring salmon, for example, to make sure they can migrate in rivers, is another example of a wildlife colony where AI could be deployed.” “The technology can work in any environment in which you want to be able to monitor a species and be hands-off, either because it’s too remote or because you don’t want humans interfering in that environment,” said Wignall. Wignall says that while the Isle of May project is focused on puffins, the technology has the potential to monitor other animals who may be affected by developments and infrastructure changes, such as the deployment of new or existing wind farms. When the cameras are on, the AI can spot the puffins, separate them from background images such as rocks and track them individually, frame by frame, as they move around. “Data captured is being stored in Microsoft Azure Data Lake and uses the Azure Kubernetes Service, which has the power and elasticity to handle huge amounts of information.” “Each box has a condensation heater, wipers to cope with the weather and a backup power supply,” said Wignall. The cameras for the initial trial were installed in April 2021, with monitoring taking place over the summer breeding, April to August 2021. ![]() To spot, recognize and count puffins on the Isle of May, the project team is four cameras in stainless steel boxes around the Island that capture live footage of the puffins. Wignall says the technology has provided an understanding of the Puffin’s return to land to breed in late March and early April following their eight months at sea and how the birds return to the same burrows as in previous years. “With around 80,000 puffins recorded in March 2020, this individual understanding of the puffins within the colony would not have been possible without deploying AI technology.” “The AI tools recognize each seabird individually, monitoring their movements and activity,” said Wignall. The AI being used on the Isle of May can detect each individual puffin.
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