Skomer Island - Bird Paradise

Skomer Island - Bird Paradise (Except for some of the Shearwaters)


Rapport in North Haven, Skomer Island

The island name harks back to Viking times but all was peaceful for us.  Around us in North Haven, where we lay at our buoy, were rafts of birds, mainly Puffins.  With over 40,000 breeding pairs on the island, this might not be surprising.  Overhead were clouds more birds, Guillemots, Razorbills, Kittiwakes and Fulmars.  We rowed ashore, arriving a bit early as usual (the island opens to visitors at 10:00 hrs), and were greeted by the friendly wardens, who took our money and told us to keep to the paths and to be nice to the birds.


Weather:  Sunny with cool breeze, perfect for walking round the island.

Visibility:  Clear and beautiful, excepting one short patch of sea fog.

Wardens and visitors:  Happy and friendly.

We also knew that rats were not welcome and left ours on board.


Ship's Rat


Skomer is rocky and rugged.  Past attempts at farming (there are the remains of a lime kiln still showing) have given way to wild plants and flowers.


Bluebells

We followed the outer path around the coast, taking about 3 hours to stroll around.


Skomer - South Coast

The Puffins were so relaxed that I was worried about accidentally treading on one and the rabbits were also very unconcerned by mankind (they obviously hadn’t heard of rabbit stew).


Puffins at their Burrows

If Puffin numbers are impressive they are still way behind the Manx Shearwaters.  There are over 300,000 breeding pairs of Shearwaters on Skomer, many sleeping in holes and coming out at night (which proved a problem, more about this in the next blog)!  This allows the black-backed gulls plenty to eat and there are many dismembered Shearwater corpses littered around.

Parties of bird watchers arrived by boat from time to time but the island is a big place and there was plenty of wide open spaces for everyone. Their huge camera lenses rather put mine to shame (envy?!) especially since I've so far failed to even download those pictures to my new laptop! Luckily Rosie took some good ones with her phone, used here.

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