Tuesday 1 October 2024

Island Update - Late September

 As we pass the equinox, it’s officially autumn. The nights are drawing in and the temperatures are dropping. Skomer is transitioning in to end of season jobs and warm sunny days are now a mere memory.

A golden sunrise with a grassy meadow in the foreground and ragged cliffs and sea in the background.
Sunrise from South Plateau looking over the neck (my favourite sunrise spot) 


September jobs

Autumn on Skomer is the time to do repairs and construction. Benches, fences, signs, dams, and more which have survived the previous year are in need of some touching up before the winter.

With there only being one boat per day, if there are any at all with the weather, the weekly volunteers are giving helping hands around the island fixing up paths, clearing vegetation, and other general DIY. Wooden doors, signs, walls, fences, and benches have all been treated with preserver, along with the sales point and landing. Paths at the Wick have been widened as the grass had grown over, rotting benches have been replaced, and brambles around the farm have been cleared, to name just a few tasks.


A sunny day with a wide dirt path in the foreground. Lots of green grasses and plants beside the path.
 The newly widened path at the wick

The volunteers aren’t the only people learning new skills this month; our assistant warden Ceris has been hard at work getting street savvy with some gen-z lingo. She described the application of wood preserver at the sales point as “That fence is giving, you guys ate and left no crumbs. Slay” (translating to “That fence looks amazing, you guys did an amazing job, well done”).

A group of six people in overalls and with paint brushes. Some are looking at the camera, whilst others are looking at a sign being painted.
Ceris and some weekly volunteers inspecting Nick and Pete’s painting work. It’s definitely slay.


Sunrise barge day

In preparation for all the construction and repair work going on in the last few weeks, we had our second barge day of the season. With the early high tide, this meant being ready at 6am for a long day of hauling and organising the components of a new kitchen, two new bathrooms, a dam repair, and so much more. The rest of the barge load comprised of several tonnes of sand, aggregate, concrete, large stacks of wood, and over a dozen full gas bottles. There was also plenty of old construction waste, empty gas bottles and more to leave the island.

A small flatbed boat with a crane and lots of materials on. A colourful sunrise is behind.
The laden barge at sunrise


The boat lifting gas bottles with a crane onto a concrete jetty.
The barge moving full gas canisters onto the island


A shed with three people inside and full of construction materials such as wood, cabinets, concrete, and more.
 A dumper shed full of materials


Work party and building work

All this material was brought on for several construction and repair jobs, with the refitting of the hostel kitchen and bathrooms being the main project. Six volunteers have come to the week as a work party to prepare the hostel for builders to come, amongst other jobs across the island. For the last week, the farm has been a bustling construction site.

three people in a corridor with hand tools and broken concrete on the floor
Concrete being chiseled out of the research block hall

Two people in a kitchen with tools taking it apart.
The work party removing the hostel kitchen


The kitchen from the previous picture with all cabinets, ovens, and other parts gone. It’s an empty room.
Gone in a matter of hours!


A wooden bird hide in the background with a new conreted dam infront.
The progress with the new dam at Moorey Mere


North Valley Willows Improvements

On the topic of construction projects, our LTVs Nick and Pete have recently finished a project putting in two new sections of boardwalk at North Valley Willows near Green Pond. Along with the boardwalks, paths were cleared and a falling branch was propped back up.

Two people with tools surrounded by wooden struts and lots of mud.
Nick and Pete working on the boardwalk

Pete sawing a wooden block on top of an old section of boardwalk. A few wooden sections are sticking out the ground which are the supports.
Pete cutting one of the supports for the boardwalk


three round balls of clay with stick arms and leaf eyes. It looks like a brown snowman.
The ground was so clay-like whilst digging the supports in, we were able to make “Clayton” the warden in mud form.


Two stretches of wooden boardwalk over some grass on a sunny day.
The finished boardwalk


A path with trees on one side. A branch is being held up by two bits of wood forming a cross shape.
The propped-up Willow branch


Sunrise Spoonbills

Autumn migrants are still passing through, with conspiracies of Ravens and charms of Goldfinch gracing Skomer with their presence. We were delighted to have Dave Astins of West Coast Birdwatching lead a bird watching group for three days. Plenty of birding highlights were enjoyed with the regular array of Spotted Flycatchers, Chiffchaff, Willow Warblers, Greenland Wheatear, Snipe, Dunlin, Whinchat, Blackcaps, and plenty more. Some of the special sightings were Hobby, Common Rosefinch, and an amazing display of seven Spoonbill which flew over the island and circled back four times.

Close up photo of two white birds with large spoon-shaped bills in flight.
Spoonbills photographed by Dave Astins


seven silhouetted birds in flight above the roof of the farm house. The sky is bright yellow with the sunrise.
The Spoonbills over the farm - photo by Dave Astins


More Skomer yoga!

As our events season comes to a close, we finished the programme with our final yoga retreat, lead by Ady. With moonrise sessions at the garland stone, and sunrise at the trig point, the group enjoyed a wide range of breathing and mindfulness exercises across the island. Booking for events next year will soon be advertised on our website.

nine people sitting on yoga mats stretching their arm over their head. There’s a soft yellow light from the early sun.
The yogis having a morning session in the courtyard


Colossal cumulonimbi and Stunning sun dogs

Clouds have been something I have always loved, and here on Skomer, we’ve had some beautiful skies. My brother has a good quote “clouds are the most under appreciated form of natural beauty in my opinion” which I completely agree with. You can always look up at the sky and know something about what’s going on up there. Even a grey featureless blanket, or an empty blue sky, tells you so much about the weather and how the atmosphere is acting, which is fascinating.

Autumn is a great time for cloud and weather watching. With storms mixed in with fair weather, you can see a great variety of cloud types and have a wonderful array of sunrises and sunsets.

A bracken filled meadow with a large cloud forming overhead. The base is dark with puffy edges.
Cumulonimbus cloud at gorse hill. One of the tallest and most iconic storm clouds we can get, sometimes reaching 16km high. These impressive clouds can bring heavy precipitation and lightning.


A sunrise view over a bay with long rows of clouds overhead.
Stratocumulus radiatus (Stratocumulus - low puffy clouds all connected. Radiatus - long ‘cloud streets’ forming rows of clouds) over North Haven

A bright sunrise with puffy clouds lighting up.
Cumulus (The classic fair weather cloud which is the iconic ‘cloud’ shape) at sunrise.

wispy white clouds over a pond

Cumulus fractus (fractus - a broken or fractured version of the cumulus cloud) over north pond.



white wispy clouds above the farmyard.
Light hairy cirrus clouds (cirrus - from Latin of curl, wispy high-altitude cloud) above the farm


A cloudy day with a bright spot on the left with the sun, and a dimmer spot on the right with the sun dog.
The sun (left) and a sun dog (right). Sun dog’s form when light refracts through ice crystals bending the light from the sun towards the viewer.


A sunset view over the sea with a small island seen in the distance. Bright yellow rays are seen around the edge of the cloud.
Crepuscular Rays over Grassholm. Sun’s rays shining around the edges of the cloud


Harvest time at the farm!

Rob’s veg patch at the farm has had a magnificent crop this year. Thanks to his hard work and the fertile soils of Skomer, several collections of courgettes, beetroots, and salads have been made over the last few months. Last week, Rob had his largest single harvest with 10kg of rhubarb, salad, potatoes, carrots, courgettes, beetroots and parsnips. However, the crowning glory and winner of “Largest Skomer vegetable of the season (and probably all seasons prior and to come)” was his 2kg marrow. This is a particularly impressive vegetable as it has been a bumper year for slugs, with the mild and moist season forming a perfect slug-fest with one pumpkin and several potatoes already succumbed to the hordes of gastropods. When Rob noticed a particularly large courgette one morning, he decided to see how large it could grow. Either, it would grow large and act as a decoy veggie so all the slugs and snails would target one individual instead of lightly grazing upon the entire garden, or the courgette would evolve into a giant prize-winning marrow and Rob would have a delicious dinner, win-win!

A small rabbit being held in a hand
 A sneaky Rabbit that got into the veg patch but didn’t cause any damage

Rob standing outside holding a large green marrow in his hands. It’s about 40cm long and almost 10cm wide at most.
Rob with his huge marrow! 


A table with a selection of vegetables layed on it, including rhubarb, salad, potatoes, carrots, courgettes, beetroots, and a parsnip.
The full harvest! 


Investigating the strength of Nettles

Many of Skomer’s visitors and residents have commented on the high strength of the Common Nettles (Urtica dioica) found on Skomer, with some people still in pain days after being stung. In 2022, when Sir David Attenborough visited for the filming of Wild Isles, he sat at the sales point and got stung, saying “You have very strong nettles here”. To try and answer the question of how much stronger they are, Nick carried out a short and highly simplified investigation in their free time.

A view through a microscope of a stinging nettle stem. Lots of hairs and sharp needles are seen.
The stinging needles of the Nettle

The literature doesn’t have much on the varying strengths of Nettles, but Kato et al. (2008) from Nara Women’s University in Japan published a paper on “The evolution of nettle resistance to heavy deer browsing”. In the paper, it was found that the nettles in Nara Park had a much higher needle density as they were being subjected to high intensity grazing by the Sika Deer. This could also be the reason why the nettles on Skomer might be stronger than the ‘average’ nettle due to the high grazing Rabbit population. This paper was used as a rough guide to form a small study on how needle density varies on Skomer, compared to other locations.

Three locations had samples taken; Martin’s Haven on the mainland (as a rough off-island comparison), the farm at the centre of Skomer (one of the highest grazing densities on the island), and the sales point in North Haven (more specifically, the very bush which stung Sir David to get the quote mentioned above). The results were far from significant, but had a measurable difference

Two bar charts showing the needle density for several sites. The two sites on Skomer are slightly higher than that of the mainland. This is true for both charts which represent the under and upper side of the leaf
Average needle density shown at the three different sites with both the upper side (a) and under side (b) counts shown. 

It showed that Skomer’s nettles had a slightly higher needle density compared to the mainland, but not by a considerable margin. A reliably sourced figure for the average needle density of U. dioica was not found, so a comparison to needle density further afield than the far West of Pembrokeshire could not be calculated. A more reliable figure and distribution of needle density on Skomer could be carried through a much more thorough investigation, but it’s interesting to see what could be found through a little looking!

Autumn tides

As we passed the equinox, doubled with a full supermoon, the tides have been extra strong recently. On the 20th September, the tidal range on Skomer was an amazing 7m. On particularly low tides, when you’ve finished swimming the water will sometimes be considerably below the bottom step.

A time lapse of the full changing tide

Emma arrives on Skomer

We’re excited to welcome Emma to the island until mid October. She will be helping with the seal research that’s taking place, mainly on the Neck. She will be helping with the regular counts of hauled out pups and adults, along with looking at individual Seal’s scars and patterns to match up with database images. This information will allow us to know where these seals have been seen in previous years to look at site fidelity (the tendency for an animal to return to previously visited locations).

Emma standing on a muddy stretch of ground looking through a camera.
Emma photographing seals from the Isthmus

At around 100 or so Seal pups already, the pupping season is well underway. The Seals haunting sounds of “AwooOOooOoooo” and “WfuuuguaaaahhHHH” amongst a wide variety of others can be heard from across the entire island. On still mornings you can often hear them from the farm drifting across the fields. Extra atmospheric if it’s a heavy mist or low cloud! The Seal pups make a much more toddler-like sounds which can be very disconcerting when you hear it echoing amongst the sea caves. Haul outs across the island are continuing to rise in numbers with Castle Bay regularly having over 30 Seals.

Departing LTVs

As we come to end of September, this sadly means the departure of our two long-term volunteers Nick and Pete, who have been with us since the start of July. As a thank you, Rob our Visitor Officer, and Ceris our Assistant Warden, took both of them, along with Emma our Seal Researcher, out for a boat trip around the island. It was amazing to see the island from a completely different perspective and gave a whole new appreciation for the island. Wildlife highlights included great views of Razorbills and a Guillemot in winter plumage, and plenty of Gannets passing right past us, with some going overhead.

A large white gannet seen from directly below.
A Gannet flying right over the boat


A small black and white bird sitting on the water
A Guillemot in winter plumage

A rocky cliff seen from a boat.
Skomer Head and the Amos as seen from the boat


Two people sitting on a boat looking at the camera
Our departing LTVs Nick (left) and Pete (right) sitting on the boat

As we say goodbye to our long-term volunteers, weekly volunteers, and day visitors until next spring, Skomer is wrapping up the season and preparing for the winter.

- Nick (and Pete, Skomer LTVs)

A bright orange sunset with wispy clouds being lit up
Sunset seen from North Valley