Island Update - Late August

Autumn is in full swing here on Skomer. With strong winds becoming the norm, the Ragwort and bracken are beginning to die off, and Grey Seal pups are popping up all round the island beaches.

Sunrise over the Neck during Seal monitoring

Arts Week

With our events season well underway, we followed on from Black2Nature with Skomer’s first ever arts week. The week was split into two; an art retreat with Linda Norris followed by a folk music retreat with Filkin’s Drift.

Led by Linda Norris, a local Welsh artist, the group got creative with a wide variety of forms, from charcoal to cyanotype paper. With guided walks, Skomer Vole handling and more, the group were able to draw inspiration from the multitude of colours, patterns, and textures found across the island. To end the retreat, a ‘private viewing’ was held in the farmhouse to celebrate and appreciate all the amazing artwork produced over the few days.

The arts group handling Skomer Voles

A Skomer Vole

A selection of the artwork produced on Skomer during the arts retreat

More of the art!

As the art group left, the folk musicians arrived. The usual changeover luggage consisting of camera equipment and hiking poles now consisted of paint brushes, sketchpads, and instrument cases. For the next several days, the farm transitioned from an art gallery to a concert venue with folk tunes drifting across the courtyard all day, much to the pleasure of its residents. The musicians learnt and developed compositional and playing techniques and used Skomer’s landscape and wildlife as inspiration to create their own melodies and tunes. The music retreat was led by Filkin’s Drift, a contemporary folk duo who have recently walked 870 miles along the entirety of the Welsh coast path on a sustainable music tour.

This was the first record of musicians performing on Skomer, and it fit the island atmosphere perfectly. Each evening, the group would have a jam session, where everyone on the island could come together and play, whatever their musical ability. Though the acoustics in the visitor centre were amazing, the only room big enough to fit everyone in was the hostel lounge. Somehow, 28 chairs were squeezed into the room and everyone on the island came together to enjoy a night of music. With the wind and rain outside, a moody French tune was the perfect match and as Rob began playing everyone joined in one-by-one, slowly building up a rich blend of tones and harmonies. From bouzoukis and Shruti boxes, sitars to five-string fiddles, the mix of sounds was enthralling.

The folk group playing in the old farmhouse

 Some of the great music played over the three days.

The whole of the island all squeezed into the hostel lounge for the final jam session

Folk musicians crammed in the lounge!

Shearwater Week

The next instalment of this event season was Shearwater Week, with several groups coming to enjoy the magnificent Manx Shearwaters that call Skomer their home. The schedule included helping with chick weighing, watching rafts at the Garland Stone, night walks amongst the colony, and an evening of talks from the OxNav research group. Several fascinating talks highlighting their research and knowledge were given by Sarah, Bridget, Layla, and Patricia.

A Shearwater Week group being shown Manx Shearwater chicks.

 A group watching rafts from the Garland Stone

OxNav Finishes Regular Nightwork

As the end of the Manx Shearwater season approaches, the OxNav group have finished their regular nightwork. This work involved being up until 3/4am to monitor and work on the Manx Shearwater colony at night; checking burrows for adults with GPS or GLS attachments, weighing the birds post-feeding, and more.

Sadly, we have said goodbye to Lewis, our Oxford PhD student who had been working hard with nightwork and data analysis on Manx Shearwater navigation. We also sadly said goodbye to Patricia, who had been with us for a couple of weeks helping the rest of the OxNav team and collecting data for her own PhD research. Regular night work might be over, but the OxNav group are still hard at work with daily chick weighing, data analysis, conference preparation and more. The chicks are getting big now with some having lost almost all their down who now look like chunky adult birds, but still weighing one and a half times the weight of an adult. These chicks will need to lose some of that weight, transferring a lot of it into muscle to power their wings to get themselves all the way to Argentina. Other chicks are in the phase of having the adult feathers coming through, but still having patches of down here and there, giving some individuals large mutton chop sideburns, a big afro, or fluffy ruffs.

A patchy Manx Shearwater chick

Seal Pups!

Pupping season is gaining traction and at the time of writing, there are already over twenty pups across the island. More and more Grey Seals are hauling out onto beaches and bays, especially at North and South Haven and their haunting calls and songs are drifting across the island. Here is a quick guide on how to tell your bulls from your cows, and your pups from your weaners:

Cows: These are the females and tend to be lighter coloured and spottier. You can easily identify the cows when they’re pregnant as they’re especially round. Looking at their face, it tends to be flatter, with the head not being as large as the males.

A cow at North Haven

Bulls: These are the males and are considerably larger than the cows (females) being up to 2.5m long and weighing up to 300kg (compared to 200kg for the cows). They appear darker and less patterned, their head looks larger, and their face looks slightly curved/concave with a “Roman nose” look to them.

The distinctive "Roman nose" of the bull

A cow (lower left) and a bull (upper right)

Pups: These are the cream/white fluffy young and could be stained yellow if they’re only a few days old. They start by looking quite thin and lean but quickly grow and seem to inflate as they quickly gain weight. This is because the milk they get from their mum is 60% fat which causes them to gain around 2kg every single day. They are fed for around three weeks until they moult their white fluffy coat (lanugo) and become a weaner.

A young pup only a few days old. The fresh umbilical is still visible 

An older pup, probably a week or so old

Weaners: These are the pups which have moulted their white coat and now have the patterning they’ll keep for the rest of their life, even after moulting each year. They are the size of a large pup, but have the patterning of an adult, and usually paler colouring.

Immature: These are the seals which haven’t reached sexual maturity and are a few years old. They look similar to the adults in colour and patterning but are noticeably smaller.

Happy seal watching!

Bladder Campion Anther Smut Fungus

After my blog post last month talking about the Red Campion Anther Smut Fungus (Microbotryum silene-dioicae) I thought that would be all the smut fungi I would talk about here on the blog. However, after an exciting find last week, I can’t help but talk about another one. When learning about the species associated with Red Campion, I saw that there are other campions that get affected by their own smut fungi, notably the Bladder Campion Anther Smut Fungus (M. silenes-inflatae). This species affects the anthers of the Sea Campion flower in a similar way to M. silene-dioicae, where the infected anthers are coated in a dark mass of spores. Bladder Campion Anther Smut is also likely to be a common fungus, like the Red Campion Anther Smut, however it is under-recorded to an even greater extent with only a sprinkle of records across the UK and Europe. This was really exciting to find and even more so as we are late in the flowering season for the Sea Campion, with few flowers still out across the island.

The Bladder Campion Anther Smut Fungus!

Mushroom Season

On the topic of mushrooms, after a reasonably wet summer, the fungi season is off to a great start. Meadow Puffballs are popping up all across the island, with quite a few even coming up in the courtyard. The giant Parasols at around 20cm tall are appearing almost overnight and Brittlestems are dotted along the sides of the path.

 A large Parasol mushroom

Another recent fungal highlight (two in a single blog post?! Must be your lucky day!) was Entomophthora muscae, sometimes called the Fly Death Fungus. This is a fairly frequent fungus which infects different species of fly and after several days, the fly tends to crawl to a high point, extend their legs, and open their wings, ensuring the fungal spores are dispersed as widely as possible. You can tell a fly has been infected by the unusual resting position of stretched legs and open wings, and the hyphae have burst out of the fly’s body. This fungus seems like something out of a zombie apocalypse film as it takes control of the fly’s brain in order to effectively spread to more hosts. This is a fairly common fungus, so keep an eye out for any dead flies at the tops of plants. Spooky, but amazing!

A fly that has been infected by E. muscae.

Autumn Migration

Although the influx of autumn migrants hasn’t properly ramped up yet, the noticeable difference is the departure of some of the Skomer residents, notably the gulls. Only a few weeks ago the ponds across Skomer were covered in them, with North Pond regularly accommodating well over a hundred of them. Though most gulls are seen as pesky chip-stealing birds which terrorise the seaside, they are amazingly smart and underrated. With my welcome talks to the visitors, I always try to convert them to gull-lovers by the end of the day with help from a story which Ceris told me:

North Pond: Left - 22nd July with over 150 gulls present. Right - 27th August with no gulls present. 

Some French ornithologists were having lunch in a Parisian park and saw someone feeding the birds with bread. A Herring Gull came along and took a chunk, but instead of eating the bread, decided to use it elsewhere. Taking the large chunk to the fish pond, the gull began breaking it into smaller pieces and dropping them into the water. Now the gull simply waited for the fish to eat the bread and caught them. Amazing!

The gulls are smart, but sadly their populations are also in decline, which takes most people by surprise as you hardly think their numbers are struggling in coastal towns. The rural population however is in decline, which makes Skomer an important breeding ground for the gulls. Plenty of research is taking place here to monitor their populations and long term trends.

Our resident Kittiwakes are the next bird to leave Skomer for this season and we’ve seen their numbers slowly dwindle, with South Stream and High Cliff becoming eerily quiet with only the sounds of seals drifting across the bays. The colony at the Wick is still bustling with activity most days as the last of the juveniles ready themselves to head out to sea for the winter.

Kittiwake and Fulmar Monitoring

With the seabird season coming to a close, this meant we sadly said goodbye to Freya, one of our seabird field workers, who had been hard at work all season collecting data from gulls, Puffins, and more. Will, another one of our field workers has been finishing off the Fulmar and Kittiwake monitoring with regular checks on plots including both North and South Haven, the Neck, the Wick, and the Amos. Each seabird has their own monitoring methodology and involve checking nest sites for the presence and age of the chick(s).

Pete (left, Skomer LTV) and Will (right, seabird field worker) looking at the Fulmars in South Haven from Captain Kites

An interesting thing we’ve noticed around Skomer are some fulmar chicks have taken residence in what looks like small caves at the tops of the cliffs. These appear to be old burrows which have been partially eroded away to leave an opening on the cliffside. A handy place to live if it’s raining or particularly hot!

A Fulmar chick with the penthouse suite

Ragwort Mapping

The Ragwort has put on an amazing show this year with carpets of this wonderful plant covering almost every corner of the island. Our long-term volunteers Pete and Nick have mapped the Ragwort this season to find out just how much it covers Skomer - it turns out it was quite a lot!

The distribution of the ragwort this season

Pete (Skomer LTV) mapping the Ragwort from the trig point

There’s a nice relationship between the Cinnabar Moth and their foodplant, the Ragwort. As the Ragwort flowers for the second or third year, the population of Cinnabar moths increase on a massive scale, and the caterpillars eat through huge amounts of the plants. Some years, this causes the Ragwort to take several years to recover again, and the cycle starts over.

Golden skies with the golden flowers

The nights are drawing in and and flocks of migratory birds are beginning to pass through. The autumn season is upon us as we head into September here on Skomer.

-Nick (Skomer LTV)

Sunrise looking towards the neck from South Plateau

Island Update - August On Skomer

As summer comes to a close and autumn migrations (and weather!) begin, August is a time of pivotal change on Skomer. Auks like the Puffins, Razorbills, and Guillemots are now a rare sighting, but they’ve been replaced by murmurations of Starlings and visiting migrants like Blackcaps and Robins. A lot of island attention now turns to our sheltered coves for seal pups and to events like Black 2 Nature!

A gorgeous yellow sunset seen from the Garland Stone

Sea May Weed in full bloom illuminated in the afternoon sun

Seal Season

With the first two pups spotted in Matthew's Wick on the 6^th August, seal season is officially underway on Skomer! Increasing numbers of pregnant females are spotted hauling themselves out onto their favourite low tide spots such as the Garland Stone and Rye Rocks in North Haven. The Neck and the main island are now being surveyed at low tide every 3 days to count the pups which will continue until the end of September.

A large bull Grey Seal spotted resting in Kittiwake Cove

One of this season's first seal pups seen at Matthew's Wick on the Neck

Moth Trapping

This month, Skomer has been blessed with gorgeous warm and dry late-summer evenings which have provided fruitful moth trapping! We were joined by the Perseid meteor shower and even the northern lights on the 11^th August where we caught 24 different species including a rather regal Oak Eggar moth pictured below. Weekly volunteers and hostel guests were blown away by the diversity and subtle beauty of Skomer’s moth community, all thanks to the fantastic identification skills of Assistant Warden Ceris and LTV Nick!

A female Oak Eggar moth posing on egg boxes from our moth trap

Black 2 Nature

In other exciting news, Skomer has been host to a group of extremely enthusiastic teenagers this past week as part of a Black 2 Nature residential. Black 2 Nature (B2N) is a charity dedicated to connecting visibly minority ethnic (VME)) kids with nature and improving equal access to natural spaces. As part of their stay, we involved B2N guests with as many of our favourite island activities as possible, including weighing Manx Shearwater chicks alongside OxNav students, seal watching, and even a quiz including points for best bird call impressions! 

The B2N group enjoying the sunshine on Skomer

Great Black-Backed Gull Diet Study

One of Skomer’s seabird researchers, Will, has been monitoring the Great Black-Backed Gulls (along with a handful of other species!) from nest site to fledgling. As well as this productivity research, LTVs Nick and Pete have helped Will rummage through this season’s abandoned nests in search of clues into the chick’s eating habits.

Will (left) and Nick (Right) discussing the contents of a Great Black-Backed Gull chick pellet

The diverse leftovers we found suggest that these enormous chicks have been chowing-down on everything from fish, plant matter and rabbits, to Manx Shearwaters that their parents have caught! These data give us invaluable insight into the diet of these birds whose numbers are unfortunately in decline across the British Isles.

An extremely fresh Great Black-Backed Gull pellet containing mostly vegetable matter

 With the days cooling down, autumn migrants passing through each day, and seal pups popping up in greater numbers, September is fast approaching here on Skomer.

- Pete (Skomer LTV)

Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) seen from the Harold Stone

Island Update - July on Skomer

Summer is well underway, and autumn is fast approaching, and by some measures, already here! The last of the Guillemots and Razorbills have headed out with only a handful of sightings every other day. The last few Puffins are seen busily ferrying fish to their chicks, plenty of Kittiwake fledglings are around and the fuzzy Fulmar chicks are popping up across the cliff-tops. The Grey Seals are hauling out in larger and larger numbers across the island over the last few weeks, and we’re all eagerly awaiting the first pup of the season to arrive.

We sadly had to say goodbye to our two LTVs Huia and Mike who have been with us since March, but have welcomed our new ones Pete and Nick who will be staying with us until early October.

A sunny view of the Mew Stone from The Neck

A sunny view of Moorey Mere and South Stream Valley

Gull ringing

In early July, we managed to ring over 350 juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gulls, in order to monitor their breeding success and see how many return to the island in the following years. This involved searching through the bracken (made denser and taller this year thanks to the unusually wet spring) for the juveniles which would either hunker down in the foliage, making it easy to pick them up (apart from some which had your wrists at the top of their menu), or having to follow the shaking vegetation to chase down your gull. These gulls were then handed to our licensed ringers to be fitted with their rings before being released.

Our new LTVs Nick (left) and Pete (right) helping with the gull ringing

Manx Shearwater research

The OxNav masters students, Bridget and Layla, have been working hard with their daily weighing of the Manx Shearwater chicks. Recently, they have also started night work, which involves working on the colony in the early hours weighing adults and chicks. With the help of Lewis, several adults have been fitted with GPS devices in order to learn more about foraging behaviour and their day to day movements. As this work can carry on until 3am, the researchers are virtually in a different time-zone whilst these night shifts are happening.

The quickly-growing Manx Shearwater chicks being weighed in a mug

Kittiwake fledglings

With the auks all out at sea, the sounds of the cliffs are now dominated by the Kittiwakes. On the 24th July we had our first fledgling, spotted by Will at High Cliff. Seeing the juvenile Kittiwakes getting to grips with flying is always a joy to see, and are a highlight for the visitors.

Red Campion Anther Smut Fungus

One particular highlight for me has been finding several sites across the island with Red Campion Anther Smut Fungus (Microbotryum silene-dioicae). As the name implies, this is a type of smut (from the German for “dirt”) fungus which takes over the sexual organs of the Red Campion flower. The usual bright white anthers are instead coated in a dark brown mass of spores where the fungus then utilises pollinators in order to spread from one host to another. This can often lead to a trail of infected flower heads showing the path of the fungus-carrying pollinator. These smut fungi could be seen as a type of horticultural STI. This is a heavily under-recorded species which is likely to be common all across the UK but with only a handful of records, so if you do spot a dark-anthered Red Campion, take a closer look and submit it to your favourite recording organisation!

The dark smut-covered anthers on a Red Campion flower

Ragwort

As the Red Campions are going to seed, the season of Ragworts is in full swing, with large areas of the island being carpeted by this glorious wildflower. Taking a closer look at them, the characteristic black and orange caterpillars of the cinnabar moth make themselves known, with some plants covered in over 40 of them. As I learnt from Ceris this week, the Welsh translation of the Cinnabar moth is “teigr y benfelen” which means “tiger of the golden head”, with the tiger being the black caterpillar with the orange stripes, and the golden head referring to the yellow flowers of the Ragwort. A lovely translation of a beautiful caterpillar with their foodplant.

A Red Admiral butterfly enjoying the Ragwort

A multitude of Cinnabar moth caterpillars munching on Ragwort

Skomer Voles

The annual work to monitor the Skomer Vole population has begun, with some of the early starts being rewarded with stunning sunrises and plenty of voles. Over two weeks, hundreds of traps will be monitored to calculate the population of Skomer’s only endemic mammal across the island.

The Skomer Vole - Skomer's only endemic mammal species

A glorious sunrise at the Farm

With the Ragwort in full bloom, the auks all out at sea, and the Grey Seals making their way to the caves, coves, and beaches to have their pups, Autumn has arrived here on Skomer. 

- Nick (Skomer LTV)

A beautiful sunset from North Pond

LBB (Lesser Black-backed Gull) counts 2024

We are honoured once again be be asked to write a guest blog of our annual pilgrimage to Skomer to count the Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

The weather forecast looked good for the 6 days, in fact it looked brilliant, lots of blue skies and south-easterly winds, it looked perfect for counting, and more than pretty good for the chance of some scarce birds.

But at the end of the day, we were here to count gulls, not find rare birds …………

Great news on arrival, we didn’t even have to carry our obscenely heavy rucksacks up the steps, as we met Leighton and some of the team. We used the wheelbarrows to get some of our stuff to the farm, as we noticed how incredibly green the island was after the wet spring.

At the farm we unpacked as little as possible but still missed a Grey Plover flying over in doing so!

We talked through the gull counts with Leighton and met Ceris and the rest of the team- just how wonderful was it to be back 😊

We loaded up the rucksack with food, drink and maps and we were off counting.

The counting went really well on the first day with beautiful sunshine and the smell of sea air and flowers filling our nostrils constantly – bliss.

Ted picked up 4 Red Kites over the Amos just after midday, and in the afternoon a stunning male White Wagtail, in the evening 3 Collared Doves arrived at the farm. 

 

Counting LBB’s

So just a brief idea of what we and the island staff do to count the gulls.

The whole island is one colony of LBB’s, it is then divided into sub-colonies which stay the same each year with minor fluctuations in size/ shape, then there are fixed points to view each sub-colony from. Ted and I go to those fixed points and count how many birds are actually on nests/ nesting, these are called the eye counts.

The team then use a correction factor (gained over many years of study) and apply it to our gull counts to give the overall figure.

 

Friday May 10^th

A day we will simply never forget, and it wasn’t because of a rare bird.

We were continuing with the counts but obviously ‘migrant bashing’ early morning and evening.

It didn’t take long as at 7am Ted found a 1^st summer male Black Redstart at the Chicken Sheds that rapidly moved to the farm, ultimately staying for a couple of days.

 

Photo 1 – Black Redstart by Ted.

We bashed around North Valley with little reward and then went to the research hide where soon things livened up as we picked up a Summer Plumaged Great Northern Diver flying north, followed only 9 minutes later by a Red-throated Diver on the same route ! What was going on? We rapidly left the hide and headed for the Garland Stone to see what was passing on the sea, pretty quickly we saw a flock of 10 Common Scoter going south, but no more divers. We needed breakfast!!

 A re-fuel and off again, bumping into Leighton and friends as we got to the first count point, a quick scan before counting……….. Wow ! 2 more Red-throated Divers flying west then north, a call to Leighton and he got them too 😊

Then a ridiculous count of 13 Red Kites in a flock over North Haven/ The Neck, amassing 17 by the afternoon. All immature, most probably 1^st summer birds. In the evening a Lesser Whitethroat in north valley.

 We went to bed pretty early, pretty tired, but then it happened ……. 

First a phone call from Leighton, and then Ceris hammering on our door about the northern lights. We are indebted to you - forever !!!!!

 We rushed out into the farm yard to find others overcome with emotions, we were then in the same way, the sky was simply breathtaking, awe inspiring, magical, over-whelming.

 

Pictures of Northern Lights by Ted.

Saturday 11th May

After the divers the day before we were obviously going seawatching early morning ! No divers or much else to be honest, but we did get a nice Great Skua passing between Skomer and Skokholm. We headed back for breakfast, and then it really kicked off ……

A scan of the west fields picked up a smallish wader flying at us, possibly having come up from the area west of North pond. I shouted to Ted and we were both locked on, different species flew through my head, as all I could really see was a really bright red/ orange belly, Bar-tailed Godwit ?, nope too small, Curlew Sandpiper ? Nope, then we both clicked and both screamed ‘Dotterel’. Nearly 30 years in the making, and simply one of my dream birds for Skomer, and it was flying virtually straight at us. The cameras went mad, we went mad. It flew past us, at which point my arms and legs felt like jelly, the adrenalin rush was intense. It turned towards Moorey Mere and we were willing it to come down, I picked up the phone to Leighton. Leighton and Ceris were on the ‘Gator’, I subsequently found out that Leighton practiced an Emergency Stop ! Sorry to say they didn’t see it. Ted and I were in shock, overjoyed, big fist pumps and hugs ensued. A magical moment, an incredible memory 😊

Photo of Dotterel by Mike

The Red Kites continued, we saw 16 together over the farm, although Dave (Astins) saw 23 over Skomer from the Deer Park.

 During gull counts on the north coast we found a colour ringed LBB, ringed right with a white ring with G:U in red.

Photo of ringed G:U by Mike 

This bird was ringed as a chick (male) in a nest on a rooftop in Bristol in 2007, it has been seen on Skomer before, in mid July 2021. Most interestingly he spends his winters on the Algarve in Portugal, having been seen there many times between 2009 and 2024 (Info courtesy of Peter Rock).   

Sunday 12th May

I was up early enjoying the sunrise, which was beautiful as it rose through the carpet of bluebells and Campion ……

Sunrise Photo by Mike

As I watched the sunrise, in the peace and tranquility, the Black Redstart started singing !

 

Black Redstart video by Mike - a beautiful sounding call as filmed in the courtyard.

 Molly then found a stunning male Common Redstart at the farm, and that started singing too. To have both Redstarts singing around the farm in the morning – simply Skomer magic 😊

 

Redstart Photo by Mike

 A Greenshank flying through North Valley was another good bird.

A walk in the evening and a methodical count of Spotted Flycatchers from the farm to North Valley resulted in 28 ! There were probably over 40 on the island.

Monday 13^th May

We made the most of a dry early morning, then the storm arrived, and it was a pretty intense storm with very strong winds and torrential rain. We had to make the most of it, we couldn’t count, so packed up a bag and went as quickly as we could to the public hide overlooking north pond. We stayed here for over 4 hrs 😊😊

Was it worth it ? Yes ! As well as the odd wader and a few swift the highlight was most definitely seeing a female Gadwall with 11 ducklings.

By tea-time the rain was easing and we were out walking, we came along the south coast where the sight that greeted us at the Wick of the Puffins was absolutely amazing. I have never seen so many here, mind-boggling numbers.

 

Video of many Puffins on the Wick by Ted.

Tue May 14^th

Our last day in paradise.

We did another seawatch, seeing another Great Northern Diver and watched a Swift arrive from way out to sea until it passed us within metres at Skomer Head, what incredible birds they are.

Through the amazing days we spent here on our pilgrimage, we enjoyed the breeding birds on Skomer, other migrants too, the scenery and of course were re-aquainted with good friends and new, wonderful people.

 Photo of female Stonechat by Mike

Photo of Whimbrel by Ted

Photo of male Stonechat by Ted

Photo of Spotted Flycatcher by Ted

Photo of Slow Worm by Mike

Photo of Kittiwakes by Ted

Thank you everyone for being so welcoming, and Thank You Skomer for being the most beautiful place in the world 😊

Mike + Ted Wallen