Bird Islands

Gannet landing at Grassholm. Photo by Alan Kimber

Gannets are masters of the air. Instantly recognizable, a trio glides just above the wave tops, their wingspan as much as 1.80 metres wide, that’s nearly twice their length. It's got to be gannets. Imagine if we had those proportions. When they curve and arc you see their wing tips dipped in ink. If you are close enough you will see an improbably blue eye framed in canary yellow, each feather neatly placed.  If you see the birds circling higher then watch to catch them gather speed to plunge dive into the sea, wings folded back so the whole bird is transformed into an effective spear for fish. 

You might smell 'em and hear 'em before you see them. Photo Alan Kimber

To get these photos Alan Kimber and his wife Sue took an evening boat trip out to Grassholm. Amy has paddled out there but was kept too busy by the water to be gettingher camera out!

Photo by Neil Buckland

Pembrokeshire glows in the Spring. The kayaking is fabulous. But it’s no place for a woman who has ambitions to sleep on an island. Islands there are a-plenty and every last one of them is taken. In Spring Pembrokeshire becomes a fabulous bird-land. The RSPB ask us to stay out by at least 100 meters where birds are nesting and so we do. This year there is an additional challenge to protect very young seals by keeping off their beaches and out of their caves. Normally they would have been fledged and out to sea by January or February but this year, even in April and May, young seals still in their white furry babygrows have been quite common.

Cleopatra's Needle, Fishguard Bay. Photo by Neil Buckland

As we paddle I am still constantly reviewing every rocky island. Maybe there will be a bird free zone? Maybe the rocks won’t all be so steep (they are). If I were a climber and could climb the chocolatey slabs of rock to the tent sized pad of thrift and long grass at the very high top then I could maybe camp.  But it soon becomes clear that there will always be at least one bird’s nest top and likely many more. I even see geese peering down from a nest

incongruously rimmed with thrift, white campion and lichen-tipped rocks.

Bird Rock. Photograph by Amy Goolden

Cormorants only need a fair sized rocky islet, a pretender of an island to strike a pose. They look like a marine take on the Angel of the North but less dignified. “You ain’t taking my place” they say, “Don’t even look at me! Don’t even think of it.” As if we would. But by late August we can come closer and Cormarant teenaged chicks will be super sweet. Big gormless fluffballs with fluff as brown as toffee and the same indignant look as their Mum’s and Dad’s but stupider. 

Cormorant. Adobe stock photo.

Where inaccessible rock has horizontal galleries there will be a few thousand birds with their eggs held perilously on narrow rocky galleries. They look like a rather noisy audience at the Albert Hall. These rocky shelves rising tier on tier are lined with guillemots and razorbills. They peer out over their smart Roman bills and make a terrible hullabaloo among themselves. These fellas stay way out in the ocean all winter, only coming in to the cliffs to breed.

Bird Galleries by Amy Goolden

So this is when we mortals see them. Even from our 100 metres out we are wrapped in surround sound by the enveloping discord of their choir. It reminds me of the old gals on the Tanat Valley bus on their way home from town after Wednesday’s market day: gossiping and laughing and nagging and occasionally breaking out in a good bit of discord. And then, at an unseen sign, they flow outwards, miles out, to collect their fishy dinners of sand eels. For a minute or two we will be surrounded. What we really want to avoid is to disturb them and cause that outwards flow. So we stay that 100 metres out.

Razor Bills. Pembrokeshire Islands

Guillemots lay just one egg a year and take it in turns to incubate this egg by cuddling it in under their cold reptilian feet. Within three weeks of hatching the chick, not yet fully fledged, takes a little jump off the edge of the rocky shelf and into the unknown. Its wing bones are not yet formed. It hasn’t feathered up! So Dad joins it and they do a Dad and Chick toddle out to sea where the rest of the growing up happens. I saw this happening once off Hermaness, the most northerly cliffs on Unst in Shetland. I was lucky enough to be paddling to Muckle Flugga and back with Sue Couling and Jon Whittaker a few years back. Dad and chick looked brave and vulnerable but the RSPB estimate we have 950,000 breeding pairs so they must be getting it a bit right.

Photo by Amy Goolden

At this time of year pink legged Oystercatchers pop up from the most unlikely places. In Winter we know them flying in noisy, self-important flocks along the waterline. Now they are anxious singletons. Oystercatchers don’t really nest, they just plonk their eggs down on ledges perilously close to high water. It must work out though. Mostly. They couldn’t be closer to their food source: they live on cockles. With their red curvy beaks they may be a bit shouty and ever so slightly ridiculous but they know more than us how to place an egg.

Cathedral Cave, St Nons. Photo by Neil Buckland.

We don’t generally think of Pigeons as romantic birds. But they should be. They have an extraordinary ability to make a vertical takeoff from cliff faces which is why they have adapted so well to city habitats of high rise buildings, window ledges and railway arches. We quite often come across them nesting in caves. They seem incongruous there but relatively unperturbed by us. If you stop a moment to watch them they are fabulously acrobatic. They’re clever. They recognize a free lunch and get on very well with the crops we grow and the occasional sandwich crust. Or maybe they’re just well adapted to us, having been the first domesticated bird, 5000 years ago.

Photo by Neil Buckland

I’m not a birder so I’m happy to describe Chough as a gregarious cheerful kind of a crow with bright red stockings on and a scarlet beak. You see them yo-yo riding the eddies in cliffy hollows. Like the much more common crow they are master acrobats but these guys live only on the western seaboard of Wales and Ireland. When we paddled round Ramsey Island my eye was diverted from the fearsome gothic appearance of the cliffs by their sociable aerial circusing. Ramsey is for Choughs as Skomer is for Puffins. It is a “Special Protection Area” for them. I am very pleased and grateful to them for allowing me to a visit the island and stay in their volunteer accommodation some time in July.

A seal made a commotion to scare us off when we unexpectedly met a seal cub in a tunnel on Ramsey. We backed off straight away. Photo by Amy Goolden

There’s no sleeping space for my paddle pals but I’m hoping Amy and Neil will give me an escort out to the island. Ramsey Sound is no water for me on my own. The flow can run at 18 knots on a Spring tide. As it passes through “The Bitches”, a reef of rocks as sharp as dragons teeth, dynamic waves flood through. In places the sound sinks to 66 metres and a pinnacle of rock, Horse Rock has a formidable whirlpool forming around it. Don’t go there - though I did once, in its early stages, when I was a new paddler and knew no better. The Sound is a thrilling place to paddle at any state of any tide. The water is in constant flux, mutating as you pass through. As often as not you’ll have company. It’s a hang out for dolphins and porpoise and we saw them this time, as ever.

Cameras out for puffins on Skomer. Amy, Alan and Keith. Photo by Neil Buckland

Did I mention Puffins? Skomer Island’s star turn. Puffed up perfection, plump white tummies and showoff fancy dress beaks. One day Alan, Keith, Spike, Neil, Amy and I did a classic kayak journey from Dale, round St Annes Head, through Jack Sound. You end by rounding Wooltack Point. There’s a National Coastwatch station up there where Amy and I scared ourselves witless by watching a force 8 wind stirring up the already fearsome flow in Jack Sound. As a consequence I was scared speechless the first time I paddled through there and would only do it if Sue Couling, my hero, was there. Neil came too. It was the first time we had paddled with him. When I asked him how it would be in the Sound he assured me that he had no idea. He only paddled it with his eyes shut.

Blue Sky crossing. Spike. Photo by Neil Buckland

This time we all kept our eyes open. Bravely we made our way across the flow into the cup shaped harbour of Skomer. As you approach the island rafts of Puffins bob in the water around you. Boat trips carry people back and forth for their four hours to the island. We kayakers don’t land there but we are allowed closer in than 100 metres in this one place. I lie back on my back deck and float whilst puffins gussy about, their little orange feet a-flap, their beaks stuffed tight with sand eels. They’re not that good at flying. You can hear their wings whirring. They’re really bad at landing and taking off too. They’re like self-obsessed toddlers working very hard at being them and it’s not funny.

Puffins. Photo by Public Domain Photos

Amy demonstrates Puffin landing technique on Marloes beach. Photo by Neil Buckland

We work our way back to the mainland and Wooltack Point. The point is an improbably large hill fort, enclosed in massive earthen ramparts, known as the Deer Park Promontory Fort. It’s one of the largest such forts in Wales, a massive stronghold with a strategic landing place at what is now Martins Haven.

The Scotties were ready for home. One by one they departed till Amy and I were left, determined to find a campable island before I headed off home. Was it impossible? We wanted one not already possessed by birds and not demanding advanced climbing skills. I was for giving up. Amy growled over over the OS map: “Dinas Island!” Dinas Island? We’ve paddled it so much we almost live there. And yes, it’s surrounded by water. And it’s definitely called Dinas Island on the map.

Ordnance Survey

Dinas Head is one of a succession of major headlines along the Pembrokeshire Coast. The striking Ordovician rock rises to 140 metres. From across Fishguard Bay Dinas Island and looks like a huge humpback whale breaching. It is an island because a wide glacial meltwater channel, now reduced to a peaty marsh and steady freshwater stream divides the headland from the mainland. You could jump over it (though you might get black muddy feet from the marshy bit) but it’s still surrounded by water. It is our island.

Cake mix rocks on Dinas. Photo by Pen

From the water the cliffs are often contorted and folded as if by a giant hand. It’s a glorious paddle, one we have done it many times. It feels like coming home, a fitting end to our Pembrokeshire paddling.

At Pwllwgaelod we load our boats with bivi bags, sleeping bags, something for supper and a really good breakfast. We pootle along, just the two of us, over barely rippled water. We’re on Springs and the race should be running at the headland but there’s nothing.

Amy on flattest ever seen nearing Dinas Head. Photo by Pen

At Cwm-yr-Eglwys, barely a mile away by the path, we rock gently in our boats, soaking up the age old sight of families packing up after their day on the beach and trailing tired children home. A 25 foot classic clinker built sailing boat rocks gently along beside us. It looks nice to be having a cup of tea, out in the bay, the sand below the clear water dappled by the evening sun.

I have a firmly held belief that one day a yachtie is going to invite us on board for a G and T in a clean glass with ice and lemon, or even a cup of tea in a cracked mug. With this in mind I chat him up ruthlessly. Nice boat, tidy rigging, neatly furled sails you’ve got there I say. He likes this but does no more than look pleased with his world. It turns out he likes classic boats. In fact he likes a boat called Tally Ho that an amazing young man called Leo bought for a dollar some years ago and has been renovating with enormous skill and flair. Perhaps we’ve heard of him?

Indeed we have, Leo is Amy’s half-brother. Our new friend gets so excited I feel sure we’re going to have our drinks passed down to us at any moment. But no. He just wants to talk Leo. And so, after a happy half hour we trundle back to Pwllgwaelod, this time looking out for a beach that won’t get eaten up by the encroaching super high tide.

No beaches but lovely light. Photo by Pen

But with no luck. By the time we get back to Pwll G, the tide is almost at the sea wall and the next sitting of families is arriving with more children and barbecues. We are so tired that we do more than drag our bivi bags up a high bank above the beach and flop  down on a bed of sea grass and mares tail. The families party and go home leaving a spotless beach behind them. The aurora borealis wheels above us. We neither knew nor cared. We were asleep. Snoring. Heads under the covers. Island number 9, the first island of 2024 is done! Um…only 68 left to do.

Grumpy woman rising. Pwll G. Photo by Amy

 Tomorrow I am driving north to the far end of Scotland. Exciting!

Campsites

 https://foxdalehouse.co.uk/

Foxdale at Marloes is a small site with hedges full of birds. Neil turned the Merlin App on and captured the usual crew of Thrushes, Blackbirds, Chiff Chaff and Swallows plus little Owl and Tawny Owl in the night and Water Rail in the early morning.

http://www.dinasisland.co.uk/camping/

Dinas Island Farm campsite

This is a lovely site which we will definitely be using in the future. The road to the farm and campsite runs up the middle of Dinas Island.

Tidal Zone Kaykaing

https://tidalzonekayaking.co.uk/womens-welsh-sea-kayak-festival

If you would like to try some classic Pembrokeshire kayak trips for yourself why not contact Amy. She is a highly qualified local guide.

Tally Ho

https://sampsonboat.co.uk/

This is the link for more about Leo's "quite famous" boatTally Ho