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.
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| Sunrise from South Plateau looking over the neck (my favourite sunrise spot) |
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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.
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| 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”).
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| 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.
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| The laden barge at sunrise |
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| The barge moving full gas canisters onto the island |
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| 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.
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| Concrete being chiseled out of the research block hall |
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| The work party removing the hostel kitchen |
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| Gone in a matter of hours! |
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| 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.
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| Nick and Pete working on the boardwalk |
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| Pete cutting one of the supports for the boardwalk |
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| The ground was so clay-like whilst digging the supports in, we were able to make “Clayton” the warden in mud form. |
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| The finished boardwalk |
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| 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.
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| Spoonbills photographed by Dave Astins |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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. |
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| Stratocumulus radiatus (Stratocumulus - low puffy clouds all connected. Radiatus - long ‘cloud streets’ forming rows of clouds) over North Haven |
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| Cumulus (The classic fair weather cloud which is the iconic ‘cloud’ shape) at sunrise. |
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Cumulus fractus (fractus - a broken or fractured version of the cumulus cloud) over north pond.
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| Light hairy cirrus clouds (cirrus - from Latin of curl, wispy high-altitude cloud) above the farm |
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| 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. |
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| 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!
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| A sneaky Rabbit that got into the veg patch but didn’t cause any damage |
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| Rob with his huge marrow! |
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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).
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| 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.
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| A Gannet flying right over the boat |
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| A Guillemot in winter plumage |
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| Skomer Head and the Amos as seen from the boat |
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| Our departing LTVs Nick (right) and Pete (left) 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)
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| Sunset seen from North Valley |
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