Puffins in Flight

Very difficult to capture these speeding bullets as they whizz past at high speed, but I managed a few reasonable flight shots on my recent trip to Pembrokeshire:

The weather was closing in by now, and for this last shot I had to resort to a high ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed:

Within a half-hour, just before we boarded the boat to the mainland, it was starting to rain.
However, it seemed we timed the trip well, as it coincided with about the only three dry days we've had this summer!

Skomer Island Puffins

A few photos from my recent trip to Skomer Island:

The one picture I didn't get was the classic shot of a bird with sandeels in its mouth, as any Puffins landing with fish would disappear hurriedly down their burrows to escape the predatory gulls and to feed their young.

Something to try for on my next visit!

Video of Puffins on Skomer Island

Here's a little footage of the Atlantic Puffins I took on my recent visit to Skomer Island:

I used an Olympus Pen E-PL1 camera, with a 500mm or 70-200mm SLR lens attached via an adapter, plus a homemade wind-muff (a piece of fake fur!) over the external microphone to hopefully cut out wind noise without affecting the sound quality too much.

Razorbills

There's normally a small group of Razorbills on the rocks near the landing stage on Skomer Island. I didn't notice them on my way onto the island, but they were there as I was leaving, and I just had time to fire off a few shots before departing on the last boat back to the mainland:

A couple of flight shots, taken from the boat as it cruised near the island:

Still sorting through my Puffin shots!

Manx Shearwater

These shots were taken on Skomer Island off the coast of Pembrokeshire on Wednesday. 

There are estimated to be about 128,000 of these birds on Skomer, meaning this island, and nearby Skokholm, compromise over half the world population of the species. They usually feed at sea by day, and then come to land at night to visit their burrows. It was therefore quite a surprise to come upon this bird by the side of a path in the early afternoon sunshine:

It shuffled across the footpath in its ungainly manner, and scrambled up onto a rock, posing nicely for the small group of photographers now present:

Not sure if the bird was ill, but it soon went back down into the undergrowth, before flying off towards the sea with no apparent ill-effects.

Strange!

Trip to Skomer Island

I've just come back from a couple of days in Pembrokeshire in west Wales. We had booked a trip to Grassholm on Monday, so decided to while away Sunday with another boat trip, this time to Skomer Island. Not the ideal time to visit, as most of the breeding seabirds, including the Puffins, had left by the end of July. Also, the Short-eared and Little Owls, which had raised young on the island, had now moved across to the mainland.

Anyhow, as we landed on Skomer, and walked up the landing stage, I looked back to see this Grey Seal bobbing in the water below:



The most obvious and numerous avian inhabitants remaining were the large colony of Lesser Black-backed Gulls:

One of this year's well-grown youngsters:

We walked up towards the buildings at the island's centre, from where we had this view across the swathes of Common Ragwort to St. Brides Bay:

Numerous Swallows were nesting on the old buildings, with this bird perching on a solar heating panel:

We had been told by the warden on arrival that there may still be a single Little Owl around the farm buildings, and perhaps one Short-eared Owl hunting the nearby valley, but all we saw were a few Manx Shearwater corpses, perhaps the victims of the predatory Great Black-backed Gulls:

Continuing onwards to the far side of the island, we arrived at Skomer Head:

From here, we could see the distant form of Grassholm Island, with its white covering of Gannets:

As we sat down to eat, a Herring Gull appeared, no doubt hoping for some titbits:

We decided to head clockwise around the island, soon arriving at somes steep cliffs opposite the Garland Stone:

We had been told we might see Peregrine Falcons here, but we didn't; the Grey Seals laying on the rocks below having to suffice:

I was able to photograph this Fulmar from above, with the dark sea as a backdrop:

Similarly with this Lesser Black-backed Gull:

We continued our clockwise walk, and eventually ended up back at our starting point for the 3 p.m. boat back to the mainland. Having come at the wrong time of year, it wasn't nearly as wildlife- or photographically-rewarding as my visit last year, but it was still a nice way to while away a few hours on a pleasant late-summer's day.

Anyway, last (and definitely least!), once back on the mainland, we decided to climb up to the to the Deer Park (the headland overlooking Skomer) for a spot of Chough chasing. Turning round for a moment, I spotted this long-lens brigade pointing their equipment at some bushes near the Martin's Haven car park:

There was obviously a rare bird about, but what? I went down to investigate after an hour or two's Chough chasing, but everyone had gone home by then.

 It was not until the next day that a birder told me that the bird in question was a Melodious Warbler, which had been in the area for a week or so. We scanned the area briefly, but couldn't see anything unusual, although we didn't try too hard. I'm not really a 'twitcher', but it would have been nice to see it. 

By the way, if anyone knows the identity of those strange creatures pictured above, please name names!