Skomer Island - by Colin King

Skomer is a small, but not too small, island just off the Pembrokeshire coast. It’s famous for its wild life, especially birds and rabbits. Its authorised human inhabitants are few and trips are regulated with visitors arriving by small boat, weather and tides permitting. Luckily they did.

Club members had an exceptional overnight stay on the island, using the very comfortable three star hostel near the centre of the island, a conversion from an old barn that once was part of the island’s only farm. A friendly and informative warden and her volunteer staff made us welcome.

We were very lucky with the weather, and suffered only slight drizzle while we were there.

Of course the plan was to photograph the wildlife, especially the Atlantic puffins, which were present in most co-operative abundance.

The multi-coloured puffins are especially photogenic, and seem to rather like posing for the camera before scuttling off to their nesting holes or zooming off the cliffs for a spot of fishing. Unafraid of humans, displays of affection are common at that time of the year when nests are being built in the burrows in the soft ground near the tops of sea cliffs. However, while it is one thing to photograph a static puffin, catching one in full flight with its brilliant coloured feet streaking across the viewfinder is quite another challenge and not everyone was totally successful at that!

The puffins were the most colourful creatures on the island by far, but that does not mean others lacked interest. On the contrary, there were sightings of a kestrel, a shag and many ‘little brown jobs’ were also present as well as numerous razorbills and guillemots. The ledges on the imposing sea cliffs formed suitably inaccessible many-tiered ‘standing room only’ galleries for thousands of seabirds nesting in the breeding season. Gulls of several types (including the huge Great Black-backed) were much in evidence, many jealously guarding their nests on the ground. Just to walk around the deserted island paths was enough to set the gulls off, squealing loudly and menacingly at any potential aggressor.

At night we were treated to the strange, barely visible phenomenon of many manx shearwaters returning from their daily fishing trips to nest in their underground burrows. There are said to be 120,000 pairs on the island. Quite large birds, they are ill adapted to moving on the ground, and crash to earth in the dark then waddle like overweight ducks to their chosen burrow. Some people tried to photograph the shearwaters landing, but that proved very tricky as they are black and it was pitch dark. Most shearwaters avoided people when landing… and of course we took care not to upset them with excessive use of flashguns. Perhaps the strangest feature of the shearwater is the haunting noise it makes at night. Thousands of birds making soft ‘laughing chicken’ noises all around you in the dark is, to say the least, strange.

The most prominent mammals were the thousands of rabbits, though some grey seals were also seen. The rabbits have been on Skomer since being farmed in the middle ages and are very numerous and quite tame, coming in brown and black varieties, both looking well fed.

Shelter is at a premium on Skomer as there are very few trees or large shrubs. The topsoil is quite soft and easy to dig, hence the popularity of the burrow for both birds and mammals. With all this underground living it’s important to keep to the paths on Skomer as the risk of causing a burrow roof to give way is great. Some parts of the island are like Swiss cheese!

Great Black-backed gulls can catch and eat a full sized rabbit, and we saw that happen on at least one occasion. They can also catch shearwaters, which accounts for the latter’s nocturnal lifestyle as well as the various remains of the birds around the island.

So much for the expected, we knew there were birds and rabbits!

What we did not expect was the truly beautiful display of bluebells and red campion. Whole sections of the island were covered in these contrasting flowers and in some sectors it was hard to imagine a more brilliant display of saturated blue and red outside cultivated tulip or lavender fields of the mainland. Apparently the bluebells, normally associated with woodland and shade, had remained on Skomer since the days when there had been woods, perhaps 700 years ago before the island was cleared for farming.

All this natural beauty apart, the Club members enjoyed a very pleasant dinner created using an evidently miscellaneous collection of ingredients by our talented member-cooks.

The amount of walking needed to cover even a small island is surprising, and there were no reports of problems with sleeping!