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).