Skomer Island and Southwest Wales 2004

Welsh nature, inside the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

This gallery was made as part of a photography trip, trying to take pictures of some of the beautiful parts of Southwest Wales, and the wildlife that inhabits it, to include in my Welsh wallpapers gallery.

• Marloes Sands, the beach near the campsite where we were staying.
• Very confused arrows in the local supermarket carpark.
• Wind surfing at Dale Roads - no, that's not us.
• Racing back.
• The waiter at Heron's Brook.
• Slides.
• Feeding reindeer.
• Closeup.
• Chameleon.
• Apparently not doing very well at adapting to the background colour.
• Heron's Brook otter.
• Getting to Skomer Island is laborious and fairly expensive. The boat service that takes you there is a monopoly, and does not have enough boats. The queue was at least two hours long in the burning sun, and we had to get there very early. People who arrived after us were turned away as there would not be enough boats that day to take them all.
• The reason everybody goes to Skomer, to see the puffins. Sure, it is a bird and wildlife sanctuary, and is teeming with a wide variety of birds, many rare ones, but everyone only wants to see puffins. The best part about the puffins here is that they are not too afraid of humans, since this is their sanctuary, and they will walk comfortably within just a few metres.
• Puffins are inquisitive, but quite self conscious. Even after the worst executed landings on the dirt, they would quickly get up and brush themselves of, trying to look nonchalant. Never happened, honest.
• A beak full of sand eels.
• Skomer Island coast.
• The sea off Skomer Island.
• Wild rabbits.
• The beatiful blue sea at North Haven, where we queued once more in the baking sun for the boats back.
• Razorbill skimming the water.
• White water in the strong currents at Wooltack Point.
• The dominating Pembroke Castle.
• Castle door.
• The castle wall.
• Wogan Cavern, a large natural cave in the cliff underneath the castle, accessible via some stairs in the castle grounds. It's actually a lot bigger than this picture shows (about 20 m x 25 m x 10 m high), but the flashgun on the camera was too weak.
• Doo dee doo. Can't imagine how this picture got here.
• Elegug Stack - the black on the top is an enormous Guillemot colony. The white is their droppings.
• The Green Bridge of Wales, at the coast near Pembroke.
• Freshwater East beach.
• Wallaby at Manor House.
• Native animals. Really. Yeah.
• The Manor House birds of prey.
• Peregrine falcon; my favourite - fastest (naturally moving - excluding humans in rockets) animal on the planet.
• Buzzard.
• Eagle.

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