Rubbish, rot and cake

No boats on June 6th-8th due to strong North Easterly winds. This meant that the volunteers and guests spent a few extra days on the island, which everyone was happy about and the food supplies just about lasted out.
The volunteers made use of all the extra time to do lots of hard graft including pit digging, gardening, compost heap turning, path clearance, sign maintenece, cake baking and some cleaning. We also managed to clear up a lot of accummualted metal scrap. One of the drawbacks of island life is that you put a lot of effort into bringing over all the things you need - from tinned tuna to tractor parts! But then you have to put lots more energy into taking off all the rubbish/remains you have created. This double handling of things onto the island and then off again makes you think hard about everything you buy/bring on. It makes you realise how little you need all the trappings of modern life that most people think of as essential.

The highlight of the week was Pete's birthday (21 plus a few!). This was celebrated with Gin and tonics and a mass cake0bake. Pete was lucky enough to have five birthday cakes!

Jerry and our new Long-term Volunteer Haf, have been on Skokholm for the last week and a half carrying out all of the seabird monitoring, which went well and numbers for everything look pretty good over there. They finished on Thursday and we were able to go and pick them up so they could return to the (relative!) mod-cons of Skomer.

A couple of sightings of Spoonbills again on June 9th, seen from Skomer heading towards Skokholm and Jerry on Skok spotted them as they came in and got some great shots. The birds then headed back to Skomer and were seen in the evening by a lucky volunteer. I will try to upload the pics tomorow.

Jo Milborrow

Skomer Warden