Day 25 - 30 Days Wild - A trip to Skomer island

* Today's random act of wildness - a trip to Skomer *

After taking a whole week off work to go to Skomer and finding out that the boats had been cancelled every day due to North winds we thought we would never get to see the puffins this year.

We woke up early on Saturday morning (Day 25 of 30 Days Wild) to a grey and wet day and thought lets go for it...so off we went to Marloes, Pembrokeshire hoping the boats were running. We got to the car park at 8am and headed to Lockley Lodge to get our tickets, there were about twenty people infront of us. Finally we got our tickets and I felt like Charlie excited to enter the Chocolate Factory!

At 9.50am we started to board the Dale Princess boat and made our way to Skomer!

Me queuing to board the Dale Princess

When you arrive on Skomer it doesn't take long before you start seeing the birdlife and as we were climbing the steps up to the island there were guillemots mating a few feet away and puffins popping up literally everywhere! After our talk on island rules "Stay on the paths!" we were free to roam the island for about 5 hours. 

This is what we saw on the magical island... 

Guillemots getting romantic!

Puffins are everywhere and only a few feet away!

Black backed gulls with chicks

Gorgeous black backed gull chicks

Puffins in Sea Campion

Guillemots on cliff

Oystercatcher

One of the main highlights of Skomer is 'The Wick' a large cliff with ledges that is home to Fulmars and other cliff nesting birds. There are many puffins here too and I was lucky to see a few come in with sand eels in their beak.

Puffin at The Wick

Puffin with a beak full of sand eels (it's standing ny one of the numbered burrows)

Puffin just chilling

Dan admiring one of the puffins

Skomer isn't all about puffins though, there are many other birds on the island and here are some of the ones we spotted as we walked for miles and miles...

A pair of Curlew

Rock Pipit 

Manx Shearwater (OK, it's dead sadly but this is such a common site on Skomer. There are many deceased Manx on the island due to gulls attacking them)

Thousands of Guillemots on the cliffs

Another Rock Pipit with juicy grub

Male Wheatear with a grub

Wheater fledgling (Thanks Darren Hemsley for helping me ID it)

Black Backed Gull

Juvenile Reed Bunting

Oystercatcher

A quick visit to the farmhouse and more importantly the only toilets on the island. There was loads of wildlife around the buildings including a little wren singing its heart out. You can stay on Skomer and we did it a few years ago to see the Manx Shearwaters at night - a wonderful experience and amazing to see sunset and sunrise :)

The old farmhouse

A beautiful Wren singing it's little heart out

A rather tatty Painted Lady butterfly

We were looking good on time so we decided to go to the Garland Stone to see if we could see any seals. There were in fact 3 on the rocks, 1 Grey Seal and 2 Common Seals. There were also lots of seabirds around here too - puffins, guillemots and razorbills.

Garland Stone being photo bombed by a Puffin!

Seals on the rocks

Grey Seal chilling out

Razorbills among thift

Puffin and razorbill

Guillemots and a cormorant on the cliffs

More Puffins...

...and another one!

Sadly it was time to leave this magical place and has we made our way down to the boat we saw even more razorbills and puffins along the way. Skomer is one of my favourite places in the world, when I am on there I never want to leave. I would recommend it to everyone :)

Sad people waiting for the boat to leave the island

Razorbills having a nap

Puffin bids us goodbye!