We set off in driving rain on the 12th for a weekend's fishing and birdwatching in Pembrokeshire. It didn't look like being a good weekend's weather with the rain becoming heavier as we headed north. We arrived at Marloes Mere for the night. Early in the morning we headed over the Martin's Haven to get the boat over to Skomer for our overnight stay. Waiting for the boat, I saw my first birds of the trip, a small groups of linnets, as well as several stonechats and whitethroats. From the boat, a peregrine headed over and we started to see the first puffins, guillemots and razorbills.
After reaching the island, we put our bags in our room in the farm, and went for a walk around the island. There were good numbers of goldfinches, meadow pipits, skylarks and several sedge warblers as well as a chiffchaff around the farm. We then headed down to the public hide on the north pond, on which there were huge numbers of gulls, as well as a four female teal. While making my way out of the hide, I caught sight of a strange-shaped bird landing on the stone wall. Getting the scope onto it, I discovered that there were two great little owls on the wall, one an adult and the other its young offspring. After twenty minutes or so watching the owls, we decided to move on. Almost straight away, a short-eared owl appeared flying straight towards us. It came very close to us, allowing a breathtaking view, before heading over towards the cliffs. It was the first of the magnificent species I had ever seen, after dozens of attempts around Dorset and Somerset, and it had certainly been worth the effort.
We then went down towards Skomer Head, past dozens of oystercatchers and several wheatears. From the point, I saw most of Skomer's breeding seabirds fly past, including two Manx Shearwaters. 8 or so Harbour Porpoises also passed. Then we walked over towards Wick, one of the main puffin nesting areas. There were hundreds of puffins, kittiwakes, fulmars, razorbills and guillemots as well as all the common gulls. I also saw a pair of choughs, a bizarre-looking corvid with its remarkable curved red bill and a real speciality to this stretch of Welsh coastline, as well as being the first I had seen in the UK. Walking back, we had a great view of a pair of peregrines, one covered in blood, through the scope. We returned to Wick later in the evening to witness the huge numbers of puffins returning to their burrows, and also saw several curlews. The enormous clouds of puffins created one of the most remarkable bird-watching sights I've had in Britain.
After a failed attempt to see the storm-petrel colony, the Manx shearwaters started to arrive. The 300,000 pairs on Skomer make up 75% of the world population, and they, along with toads, frogs and slugs covered the paths across the island. The shearwaters remarkable shrieking calls echoed across the island, and reminded me of similar experiences on Heron Island and Port Fairy in Australia. The next day, we returned to the mainland and headed over towards Strumble Head. We had a quick walk along the beach at Abermawr, where I added sand martin to my UK 2012 list. We had a short (and unsuccessful) fishing session at Pwll Deri, where I saw a group of 5 choughs on the headland.
The next morning we had a brief walk on Goodwick Heath, where there were several reed buntings and reed warblers, as well as a pair of ravens that passed over. In Goodwick Bay, there were dozens of oystercatchers, as well as pair of redshanks and a curlew. A sea watch from Strumble Head brought just several manx shearwaters, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars and gannets. A kestrel headed over and another landed, before being mobbed by a though
In the mid afternoon we headed down to Penfafach for some wrasse fishing. I only caught two wrasse, but the number of manx shearwaters heading past in the late evening was quite remarkable and more than made up for the lack of fish. Two kittiwakes got blown close to the headland by the strong winds and there were also two grey seals. Most incredibly, a magnificent ocean sunfish, possibly one of the strangest-looking creatures I have seen, with its enormous staring black eye, huge circular body and habit of swimming on its side, using its enormous dorsal fin to push itself along, passed just metres off the headland.
The next day, we headed home, but hearing the news of the white storks at Templecombe, we stopped off there. We found the the three white storks quite soon, looking stunning with their long red legs and bill but rather miserable in the torrential rain. They were a first for me in Britain, and to have them so close to our home made the sight of the three magnificent birds even more special. We then scanned flock of gulls for some any rarities. At first there seemed to be only herring, black-headed and lesser black-backed gulls, but 6 birds looked like potential yellow-leggeds. After spending a good deal of time attempting to work out what they were but to no avail, we headed home.
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