Skomer '17 photos

For anyone who didn't see the photos I posted on facebook here are some of my

photos from the week

Last day blues

Last full day on the island today and the rain and wind has continued so we've continued with the cleaning theme and have attacked the volunteers' accommodation.

It's certainly been a week of two halves; a sun-reddened face at the start of the week and the north wind doing it's best to blow us off the island these last two days! The rain stopped mid-afternoon so I went for a final walk to some of my favourite places. I managed to see a peregrine, a seal and five ravens.

We can see clear weather coming in from the west, just in time for us to leave tomorrow! It's always the way.

Facebook pics include the remains of an Iron Age roundhouse that can be seen on the island. Skomer has been inhabited since the Stone Age and, like many islands, was part of the mainland around 35,000 years ago. It was used as a warren (where rabbits were reared for meat and fur) during Norman times and it was  farmed regarly up until 1956 when the last family left and the island was donated to the Nature Conservancy.

Once again I've loved my time on Skomer and I'll spend the next week missing tbe solitude and the sounds of the oystercatchers, manx shearwaters and even the gulls (you get used to them by about the third day). My highlight this week has been seeing peregrines, porpoise and diving gannets all at the same time!

I said this would be the last time I came to Skomer (I always feel a bit selfish for leaving my family behind to indulge myself in a whim), but we'll see... I do also wonder how long my luck will last in terms of my fellow volunteers; I've been very lucky so far.

Thank you for reading my ramblings, and sorry I couldn't add photos to the blog this time around. See you all when I'm home x

When the north wind doth blow...

Goodness me, it's a late one tonight! Ten past midnight as I'm writing this with Manx shearwaters shrieking outside. It's the ideal weather to bring them into land; squally, windy and generally awful.

The reason for my latesness is that we've been over in the hostel with the wardens and researchers having a movie night. Ever resourceful they moved a bookcase to put a white sheet up on the wall and projected the film onto that. It's all very hi-tech here! In case you're inteterested we watched Leon, with Jean Reno and Natalie Portman in it. Very good it was too.

Today's been pretty laid back as we've had no day visitors and the overnight guests had to leave early. So we did a deep clean of the hostel which called for the generator to be turned on so that we could use the hoover and washing machine. Always an exciting day when the generator is brought into play.  Don't underestimate the resources you have such as water, electricity and gas as you certainly appreciate them more when they're in short supply.

After the cleaning we had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves so most of us went for a very wet and windy walk. We lost the Irish ferry in the sea mist for a short time; no easy feat when it sails so close to the Skomer coast! We found it again though, thankfully.

Bird log tonight was over in the hostel and was a real treat as the log burner was lit (yes, it is almost July) and I also saw what I firmly believe was a Skomer vole. Found only on Skomer, funnily enough, they're extremely difficult to find but this one was openly running along the wall of the hostel lounge! I think it was a young one and there must be a nest in the outer wall somewhere.  They do have shrews on Skomer too but until it's proved otherwise I'm saying it was a vole.

No boats again tomorrow and the wind has picked up yet again so more cleaning and maybe a bit of scything if it's not too wet.

Facebook pics are mainly rainy scenery and a video demonstrating how windy it was at the Garland stone this afternoon.

Peregrines and porpoise

Last night at bird log there was a suggestion that a strong north wind might pick up in the next few days, meaning they wouldn't be able to send the boat across. By this morning we'd had confirmation that this is definitely the case and so they were taking the overnight guests off a day early. Anyone who needed to be back on the mainland before Saturday evening, including volunteers, had the chance to leave this afternoon. They're hoping that the wind will die down by Saturday/Sunday so anyone else can get off then.

One of the other volunteers decided to go early as she won't have enough food but the rest of us are staying. We'll all be running pretty low on supplies by Sunday though. A lot can happen in three days though so I'm fairly confident we'll get off. In the meantime we're staging a "hostel takeover" and using the nice shower over there!
...
Edit: the shower was no better than ours, apparently.

So, no boats for the next two days so I think we'll be helping to give the guest hostel a big old clean. It's usually fully booked throughout the summer and you can only do so much on changeover days, especially if it's been a big group.

Despite the crummy weather today's been my best "spotting" day so far. I was on island patrol this morning so we took our time and went to a few places where you have a chance of seeing something interesting. So here we go:

• 5 buzzards (probably adults and  their young) swooping around the cliffs at Bull Hole;
• a pair of peregrine falcons at Pigstone Bay;
• 7-8 porpoise in the same area as the peregrines;
• a Manx shearwater at the Wick (very unusual).

We saw gannets in the same area as the peregrines, which often means that there are porpoise or dolphins pushing fish towards the surface as they feed, so we waited and got a great show from the porpoise. They can be tricky to spot, especially in choppy water, as they don't come very far out of the water but they were breaching quite well today and they hung around for quite a while. We left before they did. Between peregrines, porpoise and gannets I didn't know what to look at next!

I saw the shearwater when I was down at the Wick (the main puffin colony), getting freezing cold and quite wet. There was a commotion amongst the flowers and a black and greyish bird flopped onto the path. At first I thought it was a puffling but it was very clumsy and then I realised that it was a Manx shearwater. It flopped across the path and flew off the cliff. It had obviously gone down the wrong burrow last night and was trying to get back out to sea! I got a bit excited and tried to tell two ladies how unusual it was and how lucky they were to have seen it but they were a) German and didn't really understand me and b) only cared about puffins I think. So I had to wait until I saw my fellow volunteers to get a suitably enthusiastic reaction.

So it's going to be a quiet few days for us, but hopefully if the weather's not too bad I can go and get a few more photos or spend some time in the hides.

I was going to represent the volunteers at bird log tonight (it's at the wardens' house) but the weather's grim and I don't fancy getting soaked for a second time today. I'll have to share my sightings tomorrow instead.

Hats off to Larry

Yes my friends, I saw Larry the leucistic puffin today! Photos are on my big camera so I can't share them until I get home (they're not great anyway as he was a bit far away) but quite a few visitors saw him too. I went over first thing as he sems to be an early bird (sorry) and spotted him straight away. I'm saying "him"; I have no idea if it's male or female but I have to call it something. He was around the burrows for 15 minutes or so but the grass and bracken are very long so getting te camera to focus on something other

The short eared owl was also showing well today and lots of visitors were lucky enough to see it. I went over with a few other volunteers after bird log and we were allowed to go down a research path to see a chick on a nest. Sadly it was too far away for the zoom on my camera but I got a good look at it through binoculars.

Not many facebook photos tonight as we've had a busy day at the Wick and then helping with the boats.  We did get a beautiful sunset though which was unexpected as it was chucking it down at 5pm! I never get tired of any sunset but they're more special on Skomer as only a hanful of people are seeing it at the same time.

Tomorrow might be the last day that we get visitors for a couple of days as they're forecasting a storm coming in on Thursday but we'll keep an eye on it.  Hopefully it won't come to much.

Nos da pawb x

Come on in, the water's lovely

Mondays on Skomer can go either way as there are no visitor boats. This usually means a day of hard labour for us volunteers, but it also gives us a bit more free time to go and visit our favourite spot or look for a particular resident. I like Mondays as we all know what a people person I am...

Today was great as it happens. We had a few hours of path clearing in store but a lot of them have been done in recent weeks so they're not as bad as they've been in the past. Before that though we watched as a moth trap from last night was checked. Many people don't realise but there are far more species of moths in Britain than butterflies, and often they're a lot more interesting. Check out my facebook page for the photos.

After our shift finished (about 2:45) we all went out separate ways around the island and I met up with three of the other volunteers to go for a swim. Despite it being a nice day the water was a bit chilly. Hazarding a guess at the temperature I'd go with "Baltic". It took my breath away when I got in but once the numbness from the neck down wore off it was actually quite pleasant. There were a few jellyfish bobbing around just before we got in but they'd bobbed off by the time  I eventually got in (it took a while). It was quite nice being in the water with the puffins and razorbills.

On my way back to the farm I saw a short-eared owl flying around. They're not commom in Wales and with about 5 breeding pairs Skomer has about a quarter of the Welsh population.

Sadly there was a casualty at the Wick (one of the puffin colonies) today as the first puffling to show itself outside a nest this year was promply eaten by a great black-backed gull. It's not all sunshine and roses on Skomer.

Back to having visitors tomorrow and I think the weather's about to turn too, but hopefully it won't be too bad.

Glorious weather today

A misty, drizzly start today but it was clearing by the time the first boat landed and ended up being a glorious day.

The day's gone quickly and without incident. Wildlife seems to be fairly quiet at the moment with very few seals, dolphins or porpoise to be seen. It's difficult when you've got jobs to do as we haven't got time to just sit. Also, I don't always know what I'm looking at! I'm getting better though.

Today I've seen a raven, two chough, a young linnet and a few stonechat - very pretty birds that make a "chht chht" sound. Quite a few around the farm. This is on top of the usual sea birds like Oystercatchers and the birds on the cliffs.

No boats tomorrow as it's Monday so I think it's path clearing again. We'll be checking a moth trap first thing so I'm looking forward to that. It doesn't look as though the blog is going to let me post any pictures on it this week so you'll have to see them on fb.

It's like I've never been away

We camped at the farm nearest to Martin's Haven last night. It was blowing a gale when we arrived so pitching the tent was fun. Lee announced several times that he "hates camping" and is "too old for this s#@*". I  didn't think I'd sleep at all as it was like being inside a carrier bag with the tent flapping around. I did sleep thpugh and we headed down to the boat for 8:30.

There were two large groups of photographers coming onto the island, one was a day group and the other group is here until Tuesday.

All of the volunteers this week are old hands so there was no breaking-in period; we dumped our kit and were straight into the jobs!

I was on island patrol first, which normally involves walking around the island but this morning we were asked to patrol a specific area as Skomer has gained even more celebrity status this year due to the appearance of a leucistic puffin. This basically a white puffin. It's not an albino as it has the usual coloured beak and coloured eyes, rather it means that the feathers have very little pigment other than a few black patches. It's been in the Telegraph (full of factually incorrect details) and Springwatch have posted about it too, so the first thing a lot of people ask is "where's the white puffin?" Unfortunately it's made it's home near a narrow stretch of path so people are hanging around trying to get a look and causing chaos. I was dispatched to go to that part of the island to make sure people weren't getting into places they shouldn't be to get a photo of this blinkin' puffin (I've christened him Larry). I'm not clever enough to save a photo of him off the internet and post it on here but rest assured my mission this week is to get you a photo of Larry.

The weather picked up at about 5pm so I sat outside to have my tea, it doesn't get any better. See you tomorrow

P.S For some reason I can't publish photos tonight (the joys of technology) so I'll put some on facebook instead

Suntan lotion and waterproofs

Yes, lovely people, it's almost time for me to head off to Skomer island, off the cost of Pembrokeshire, for another week as a volunteer warden. This year I'll be there from 24 June to 1 July. I'm hoping for at least a little bit of sunshine, as there's nowhere more glorious on a sunny day (I'm even smiling as I write this as I remember how it looks in the sunshine).

I've been gradually building up my stock of food over the last few weeks and deciding what I think I'll absolutely need for the week (chocolate) and what I can probably live without (that extra potato). The same goes for clothes; highly unlikely that shorts will be  an essential wardrobe item (even in the summer the fog and drizzle is never far away) but my hot water bottle will be one of the first things in the bag. My bag for Skomer is usually a strange mix of sunglasses, suntan lotion and waterproofs!

I'll be updating my blog as often as possible so keep checking back for updates and photos and I'll try and keep it interesting. It was really nice to see and read your comments last year, even if I couldn't always post a reply. The signal varies depending on where you are on the island; ironically it's rubbish in the volunteers accommodation so I have to go and sit on a nearby tump and point the phone in the general direction of the sea to write my posts!

I always feel a bit weird before I go to Skomer; not apprehensive but I know I'm not going to see my family for a week and part of me starts thinking "I don't want to go", but I know as soon as I get there and we settle into our routine for the week I'll enjoy it. I do miss everyone very much while I'm away, and this blog is a way for me to record things that I'd otherwise forget to mention when I get home.

Speak to you all soon