We are so lucky in Wales to have so many contrasting habitats with an abundance of fascinating wildlife. I love the rolling hills and woodlands of my native mid-Wales but equally I also love our coastline and particularly the Pembrokeshire islands. Last Thursday my wife and I visited Skomer Island which is a national nature reserve managed by the South and West Wales Wildlife Trust. This is about the best time to visit this magical island with its vibrant seabird colonies consisting of razorbills, guillemots, kittiwakes and fulmars, and of course everyone's favorite the comical puffins looking resplendent in their summer plumage and looking all the World like porcelain figurines. We were treated to some good raptors and owls too such as peregrine, little owl and short-eared owl but we missed the hen harrier that another visitor spotted. Grassholm island lay tantalizingly close to the west but yet so far with its immense colony of gannets (39,000 pairs at the last count). There were noisy grey seals on Skomer too hauled up on the beach fasting between feeds and harbour porpoise offshore. Of course Skomer comes alive at night with the eerie calls of the manx shearwaters as they return to their burrows to their breeding partners. You wont see them in the day but as you wander along the paths around the island you may hear the odd one calling from its burrow. The bluebells, for which Skomer is famed, were just bursting through and give it another couple of weeks and these will be a carpet of blue. It is an absolute joy to walk on the path from the old farm to the Garland stone through a mass of colourful bluebells.
So take yourself off to Skomer in the next month or two and experience the island in all its glory.
The 'Dale Princess' departs Martins Haven near Marloes daily ('except Mondays' -but does so on bank holidays) at 10am, 11am and 12 noon returning from 3pm.
For more information visit the following link:-
http://www.pembrokeshire-islands.co.uk/
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