LSC May mini mag combined

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RUGGED WELSH ISLE BATHED IN BLUE Just off the Pembrokeshire coast, wild Skomer Island is alive with the sound of seabirds and flooded with bluebells to delight the spring visitor The Spit Pig Stone STANDING AT THE tip of the Marloes Peninsula on Pembrokeshire’s west coast, a blue hue is visible on an island more than half a mile out to sea. The rich colour comes from the thick carpets of bluebells that sprawl across the open land during <strong>May</strong> and June, providing visitors to the island with the extraordinary experience of walking through bluebell fields that appear to go on forever. Even before landing on Skomer Island, its abundant wildlife makes itself seen and heard. As the boat approaches North Haven, which is Skomer’s most sheltered bay, black-and-white specks bob in the water ahead. These soon reveal themselves to be seabirds: puffins, razorbills and guillemots, almost within touching distance of the vessel. Gulls fly overhead, creating a cacophony of screeches and squawks, while Grey seals sunbathe on the shingle beach. Exposed to the elements The island is rugged and windswept. As there is no land mass south-west of Skomer until South America, some 4,000 miles away, it is exposed to storms and Pains Rock Skomer Head 104 Pigstone Bay The Wick Garland Stone SKOMER ISLAND Harold Stone Warden’s House Waybench South Haven Mew Stone North Haven High Cliff The Neck Shag Rock Midland Isle rough seas. Cliffs predominate along the coastline, where seabirds nest precariously on narrow ledges. Beaches are few and far between, and are normally strewn with rocks, shingle and seals. Most people visit for the wildlife: <strong>combined</strong> with neighbouring Skokholm Island, Skomer has the greatest concentration of Manx shearwaters in the world. It also has 6,000 pairs of breeding puffins; a population that is actually increasing, while numbers plummet elsewhere in Britain. Approximately 20,000 people visit Skomer each year. Numbers are restricted to 250 per day, to protect the large numbers of birds living on what is a small island of just 721 acres, and little more than a mile from north to south. Between April and September, the Dale Princess takes visitors on the 15-minute journey between Martin’s Haven, on the mainland, and North Haven. It passes Jack Sound; the treacherous nature of which helps to protect Skomer from the land predators that would otherwise decimate the ground-nesting birds. “Over the thousands of years of human occupation here, it’s a miracle that rats didn’t get on the island,” says Mike Alexander, chair of the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales, which manages the island. “But they didn’t, and that’s the single most important reason for the abundance of wildlife on Skomer.” Once the boat has landed, the walk begins with a climb up 87 steps, passing razorbills and guillemots nesting next to the path. The colours of these auks, as with many seabirds, camouflage them from both prey and predators, when swimming on the surface of the ❯ Clockwise from right: A perfect spot to take in South Haven, Skomer, against a backdrop of bluebells; a puffin wades through the daisy-like flowers of sea mayweed; arriving at the island on tourist boat, the Dale Princess; razorbills chat, chest deep in sea thrift.
“There is a silent eloquence In every wild bluebell That fills my softened heart with bliss” Anne Brontë, ‘The Bluebell’
Page 2 and 3: Contents May 2022 100 60 12 In the
Page 5 and 6: THE GARDEN’S POWDER PUFF Full of
Page 7: SPRING GREENS OR vegetables are the
Page 11: RELICS OF THE PAST IN WILD, SWEEPIN
Page 15: for just £4.30 a month Dear reader

LSC May mini mag combined

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