Goodbye to Skomer

After four and a half months, yesterday it was time for me to leave Skomer.  But my final day was a special one.  Walking through the garden, I glanced over to the wall by the water tank, to see a Wryneck crawling upwards, searching for ants - the first of the year on Skomer, and a beautifully patterned little bird, related to the woodpeckers.  The sightings didn't stop there.  I joined Dave and Aaron in a walk down to North Valley crossing, where at first few birds were in evidence.  But crossing the stream we looked back to see a warbler fluttering between the branches of the willow bushes.  Dave quickly identified it as a Greenish warbler; a smart bird with bright white underparts, a dark supercillium and white wing bars.  This was only the third ever seen on Skomer, and an individual a long way off course from its migration route between Scandinavia and South East Asia. 

It was a lovely day, with an autumnal edge to the air.  Swallows gathered, chattering on the roof of the cleaning store and whitethroats and sedge warblers flitting between the dried, brown fronds of bracken in the valleys.  Around the farm robins were singing; for the rest of the year they are almost completely absent from the island, and it seems strange to see them perched on the elder bushes, calling and arguing with each other.  Canada geese have been flying over in classic 'V' formation, calling to each other, and occasionally enagaging in playful acrobatics - we saw a group flipping upside down in the air, then flicking themselves upright again as they flew, something you would not think possible for such a big and apparently cumbersome bird.

In the afternoon I headed out to Pigstone Bay with Sarah to watch for porpoise and dolphins; sheltered from the wind close to a small outcrop we could scan the waves in comfort, enjoying the late summer sunshine, and the occasional sight of the dark backs and dorsal fins of the porpoises slipping through the sun-flecked waves.  It is a good viewing spot - to the north seals often 'bottle' (bobbing vertically in the water) in the inlet, and behind them gulls rest on the dark, slanting slabs of rock.  Grassholm lies on the horizon, with the needle thin tower of the Smalls lighthouse beyond, and from there the gannets fly out, circling where they find fish and spearing down into the water to make a catch.

Later I swam for the last time at North Haven, which echoes to the strange, drawn out calls of seals at this time of year.  I paused briefly in the sunshine under the cliffs of the Neck, where the fronds of Kelp form a carpet over the barnacle-encrusted rocks.  My final day ended with a group meal in North Haven; Dave cooked chilli, and Akiko made a great marbled coffee cake.  We finished the evening with a cup of tea under a clear sky packed with stars, the ghostly path of the Milky Way above us.  It does not seem so long since I arrived in mid April, but already my time on the island has come to an end.

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If you have enjoyed this blog, you might be interested in my book of life on the island, which describes the 2011 season on Skomer, with more details, photos and thoughts about the island and its amazing wildlife.  This will be published in spring next year, and I will post on this blog closer to the time with details.  The publisher is Brambley Books, and the title is 'A Skomer Diary' (title subject to slight alteration).  I will also try and put up some more photos from this year over the coming weeks.

Many thanks to all the 2012 team for another great season!

Below is the soundtrack to go with my last post about fledging Manxies - you can hear them sqsuabbling on my shoulders, climbing up over my coat and flapping their wings.  At the end a flock of Canada Geese fly over, calling to each other.

Fledging Manxies

Over the last couple of weeks, Manx shearwater chicks have been emerging from their burrows to fledge.  Their parents have mostly left the island, heading across the ocean to South America – the chicks are left to make the journey alone.  At around ten or eleven each night the young birds begin to appear, scrabbling their way towards any high ground, be it a rocky outcrop or an old wall from which they can launch themselves.  One of the most special island experiences is to sit amongst these birds, and last night I made my way out along the track, looking for a suitable spot.

The waning moon is still large enough to bathe the back of the island in its ethereal light, revealing the dark forms of bracken and rock out over the plateau.  I sat on a low, tumble down wall close to the track.  Several birds were close, and, keeping still, I was just another outcrop for them to scale. 

Soon, they were scrambling up onto my legs, holding out their wings for balance, their heads low as they pulled themselves up.  The first paused for a while, sometimes tapping or gently nibbling at my coat sleeves as it assessed its situation, then launching itself up towards my shoulder.  I leant back slightly to allow it to gain purchase, turning my head as it beat its long, slender wings, hitting me (fairly gently) in the face as it went by.  Up on my shoulder it turned with its head resting close to mine, tapped the arm of my glasses with its beak.  It was joined by a second bird, making the same journey upwards, and there was a loud squabble on my shoulders as the two tried to accommodate each other.  Eventually one jumped up onto my head – slightly painful as their claws are pretty sharp.  Both birds were still for a while, occasionally beating their wings, so that I could feel their weight decreasing and increasing as they flexed.  Eventually the first one made the leap, holding its height briefly before falling headlong amongst the bracken with a crash.  It would have to begin its journey again.

Another bird had made its way onto my legs, and sat in my lap, the soft, smooth feathers of its head and breast against my hand, and I could feel its quick heart beat as it rested.  Close up it slightly wheezed, stopping to catch its breath.  A flock of Canada geese flew overhead, calling to each other beneath the stars, and their heavy wing beats were audible in the night air.  On the ground too I could hear the fluttering of wings, and the crashes as more Manxies failed to take off.  But eventually they would get it right.  These birds, sitting so calmly on my shoulders, resting their heads against mine, will fly across the Atlantic – in three or four weeks they will have followed the air currents further than I have travelled in my life, down to the coast of Argentina.  Their lives so far, in a burrow on Skomer Island, will be like a pinprick next to the range of their experience.

Perhaps we have something to learn from them, as they struggle upwards, only to fall back to where they started – they try again and again, quietly, persistently, until their leap takes them out and up and they find their true potential, flying out over the sea in the moonlight.

 

Seals, ravens and the end of summer

Over the last few weeks the character of the island has changed.  With the exodus of many sea birds the coast and cliffs are strangely quiet – the guillemots, razorbills and puffins have long since left; now the kittiwakes and many fulmars have followed.  Out on the plateau the gull chicks have fledged, with just a few mottled brown stragglers stalking the paths, and the adults have dispersed from their colonies.  Walking over to Skomer head the low ‘cronking’ of the ravens is audible as these massive, heavy-billed birds fly acrobatically overhead, or stand broodingly on outcrops of rock, in apparently solemn consideration of the island.  Everywhere the bracken has been browned by the wind, chocolate dark in the rain, as if a fire has swept through the vegetation.  The only colour comes from splashes of yellow ragwort, and a few stands of purple loosestrife, crumpled and tired with age.  When it is dry, the seed heads of red campion rattle at the slightest touch and deep down amongst the tangle of plants the high pitched squeaking of shrews can be heard.

Much of the interest now is at sea – crossing Jack Sound on the Dale Princess yesterday Sarah spotted a sunfish – these can grow to two or three metres in length, and cruise close to the surface, one fin lazily waving above the water.  Many porpoise and common dolphins have been seen out in St Brides, gathering where the gannets circle and dive for shoals of fish, sometimes acrobatically bursting from the sea as they hunt or play.  There are many seals too, gathering on the beaches to pup, the cows watched over by large, territorial males which coral them close to the shore, waiting for their chance to mate (two weeks after pupping, the females are ready to breed again).

 

With Phil and Lewis, I joined Dave on one of his survey rounds.  Each year he records the breeding success of the seals, using spray paint to mark new pups, and then following them through to their first moult.  The job involves climbing precariously down to the secluded shingle beaches and dark caves where the pups lie amongst the rocks.  Some of the caves are deep, cutting in under the island in dark, sharp edged crevices with dripping walls, around which the sound of breakers on the shore outside echoes loudly.  Out at the far end of The Neck several of these caves have pierced right through a headland, forming The Lantern, named because of the shape of the mouth of the arch.  At low tide you can scramble into this high, narrow aperture, scrambling over mounded shingle and then wading deep through a pool left by the receding tide, to stand in the dark with a vault of rock high above, and tall windows of light from the cave mouths to the north, south and east.  We found a couple of seals there, lying on the pebbles in a dark recess, hissing and growling at our approach.  We left them alone – they had no pups with them – and as we left we heard them heavily lumbering over the shingle towards another exit.  They can move surprisingly fast despite their bulk, and it can be a little unnerving to hear their heavy advance without being able to see which way they are heading.

It is a windswept, cloud broken morning as I write, and before I settle down to a variety of computer based tasks I will head out to the coast to see what birds have been blown in from the sea and to look for cetaceans in the rough waters of St Brides Bay.

A weekend away

I have spent the last few days at the Cropredy folk festival, deep in the Oxfordshire countryside; a very different world to that of the rock and sea of Skomer Island - verdant in full summer, crowded with people and full of music (and ale!).  Some of my reflections, written on Friday while sitting in the sloping field overlooking the stage, are now on my creative writing page - you can check them out using the tabs at the top...Cheers!

The Olympics comes to Skomer Island

The cliffs of Skomer are a long way from London and the excitement of the Olympic games, but this week we put together our own Olympic celebration; the SkOlympics.  There were a mixture of events taking place through the week, from welly throwing to the round island race - a gruelling 6 km run around the Skomer coast.  The mid-week swimming event in North Haven held some unexpected thrills, with a large bull seal taking a close interest in the progress of the competitors (too close for comfort in some cases!).  In the end Bridget, one of the weeks volunteers, came out victorious, overcoming the tide and the wildlife to win by a big margin.

The last day of events yesterday looked in doubt for a while, as we struggled to put the obstacle race together in driving wind and rain.  Luckily things brightened up, and the egg and spoon race, tug of war and obstacle race provided a good deal of entertainment.  The tarpaulin obstacle was a unique challenge in the wind, but in the end everyone managed to find their way out!  I finished with a bronze, although I opted for forward rolls instead of cartwheels for the gymnastics section! With a much more elegant effort Annette got the silver, with Dan (on the island for the week as a volunteer) coming in to claim gold.

The day ended with a medal ceremony in the picnic shelter, and a BBQ prepared indoors as a result of the worsening weather; Dan won overall (by a large number of points), I finished with silver and Lewis with bronze.  So the Olympic spirit has not been absent from Skomer, and the backdrop of St Brides and the rugged beauty of the island have been a match for any state-of-the-art stadium in London!

A day trip to Skokholm

Today I had the chance to go over to Skokholm (the island to the south of Skomer) a place I last visited as a volunteer several years ago.  Chris was attending a meeting marking the handover of the lighthouse to the Wildlife Trust, and there was a spare space on the boat.  It was my first trip on the fast rib that carries sightseers around the islands; skimming the grey waves we sped through the swirling waters of Little Sound and away from the cliffs of Skomer.  To the north a yacht navigated her way between Skomer and the Mew Stone, and further out the Irish ferry made its stately progress towards Pembroke.   Quickly we drew close to Skokholm.  The rocks of the island are a mixture of warm pink sandstone and black basalt, and rounding its eastern tip the cliffs angle down into the sea in jagged shards, spectacular to see.

Skokholm is smaller than Skomer, similar to its larger neighbour to the extent that the centre is a plateau dominated by swathes of bracken and rocky outcrops, but very different in geology and vegetation.  Here Golden Rod is thick along the track from the landing point, close to flowering, and along the cliff tops swathes of Wild Pansy, in some places yellow, in others predominately blue, mix with scarlet pimpernel and sea campion.

I left the main group at the lighthouse discussing the finer points of the electrical circuitry, and headed out around the coast.  It was hot and sunny, and I was glad of a cool sea breeze as I skirted vertiginous cliffs of purple that dipped their feet in a turquoise sea.  I ate my lunch at a place where fulmars swept along the coast on their stiff grey wings, changing direction and pace with the slightest movement of their tail or wings.  Having plenty of time I drifted to sleep, listening to the calls of choughs that chased acrobatically overhead. 

Back at the farm at the centre of the island, where the warden, two volunteers and any overnight guests stay, I had a look around.  Compared to Skomer, Skokholm feels much more isolated, the facilities much more basic and traditional.  In the communal dining room (called ‘The Wheel House’) there are many prizes stripped from a grounded schooner many years ago (the crew having been safely evacuated); the whole place has a tranquil, homely feel.  In the sheltered garden willow warblers flitted around the walls and hid amongst the Fuschia bushes, and there was real heat from the sun.  All too soon it was time to return to the boat, setting off from South Haven, where huge seals basked, gleaming in the sun by the light-flecked water.

The sun reaches Skomer!

Summer has at last come to the island.  At North Haven, the sound of waves caressing the shingle beach drifts in through the library window with the cry of gulls and the throbbing motor of the Dale Princess, dropping off day visitors at the landing steps.  The sky is clear blue above, softened by high white cloud over the Presellis, and dissected by the sharp white forms of gannets circling out over St Brides.  The last week has passed quickly, with data to be input and paperwork to be sorted out; the guillemots and razorbills have left, and it is the time of year when my role becomes much more office based (and more relaxed in many ways!).  As we head towards August, the numbers of Common Dolphin and Harbour Porpoise in St Brides is rising.  On Saturday we sat by the Garland Stone in the morning sunshine, seeing perhaps thirty dolphins cruising close to the surface, weaving below the hunting gannets to find fish, sometimes exuberantly exploding upwards, sending shards of silver water fountaining.  There were porpoise too – smaller and more understated - and yesterday Ali saw a Sunfish, again close to the Garland Stone.

Moory Mere has been commandeered by large lesser black-backed gull chicks, which squabble and wash, or sit hunched on the shore of the pond, seeing off any other birds that have the temerity to approach.  While I watched yesterday a solitary juvenile moorhen, somewhat self-conscious, drifted at the edge of the water, seemingly suspicious of its over bearing (and potentially dangerous!) companions.

The calm, turquoise waters of North Haven are now more tempting for swimming than the steel grey seas that rolled below dark skies earlier in the season, and the puffins still raft under the lea of the cliffs (although their stays on land are becoming less frequent, their attention drawn back to the open ocean now that most of their chicks have fledged).