Hello! I’m Yasmin, the 2026 Seabird Monitoring Volunteer and what a season we have had! Thanks to some very wet, windy, and foggy weather, our counting days were few and far between, but we persevered! Spurred on by an endless supply of biscuits, Stugeron, and Ceris’ very random selection of songs to sing to stave off seasickness, we managed to complete one full count of the island a day before the deadline! Well done us!
The
counting crew on Gwylan taken by Bella from The Amos.
I think one of the most frequently asked questions by day visitors
is “how do you count all the birds?” And when you look at an area of Skomer’s
coastline that is absolutely jam-packed with birds, it does look like an
impossible task, but there is method to the madness. The whole of Skomer’s
coast is split into 45 sections that are either counted on land or by sea.
Then, working in pairs, you split those sections into more manageable segments
to count, and armed with a clicker, a pair of bins or a scope, you click and
count the Guillemots, Razorbills, Kittiwakes, and Fulmars. Your counts must be
within 10% of your partner’s, and if they’re not, you must count again until
they are. A typical seabird counting season yields two full counts of all 45
sections; this year, however, we were pushed to do one!
Cluster
of Guillemots at The Amos taken through my bins.
A
very picturesque spot to do some counting at High Cliff!
When I first arrived on Skomer, the weather was a dream, and
Leighton wasted no time in introducing me to the new boat, aptly named Gwylan
(Welsh for gull). Leighton, Ceris, and I then headed off around the island to
finish off mapping the nesting sites of Lesser and Greater Black-Backed Gulls,
Herring Gulls, Rock Pipits, and Oyster Catchers. It was a good opportunity for
me to get my sea legs in gear and get used to looking through my bins whilst
concentrating on a cliff face and bobbing up and down in the boat.
Unfortunately for us, the lovely weather didn’t stick around for long, and we
were soon met with some very windy, wet, and foggy days.
A
very foggy footpath from The Farm to Garland Stone.
When we weren’t out counting, we were to be found crawling around
in soggy bracken with MP3 speakers in our hands, completing the yearly Manx
Shearwater census. A satisfying task of surveying 18 study plots dotted around
the island, playing male Manx Shearwater calls down burrows in the hopes of
getting a response and finding active burrows. Some areas are more heavily
burrowed than others, so it involves a lot of crawling and shuffling around,
being as careful as possible not to collapse a burrow.
Lou, Ceris, Tani, and I, Manx Shearwater censusing.
When the winds picked up and counting wasn’t possible, I was out
tackling the bracken armed with a brushcutter. Thanks to all the rain and
intermittent sunny days, the bracken across the island was growing at a
phenomenal rate. I became at one with the bracken, clearing footpaths and
research paths galore, finding it very hard to stop once I’d started.
My freshly brush cut path!
But when the weather was on our side, we were out counting! One of
my favourite days of the season was after a long day of sea counts; we stopped
for lunch, turned Gwylan's engine off, and slowly drifted out to sea,
getting a great view of the entire island whilst we ate our biscuits.
Perfect lunch spot!
My four weeks on Skomer soon zoomed by and it was time to say goodbye to the Skomer gang and my favourite seat on Gwylan. I learnt so many new skills, met some very fab people, ate an impressive number of biscuits, and counted lots and lots of seabirds!
Bins
to face, clicker in hand, armed and ready to count those seabirds in my
favourite seat!
Yasmin – Seabird Monitoring Volunteer 2026 š