I am often asked so many questions about Skomer Island and visiting the Puffins, so I thought I would pop lots of great information here under various headings and then you can choose which sections you would like to know about!
The puffins have all left by the middle of August, but there’s still plenty of things to enjoy on Skomer and you can read more about that here.
Skomer Island is open to visitors April until end of September, so when do you choose to go? In an ideal world, I’d say go twice—May and beginning of July.
Read here about my favourite times to visit-can you guess?
The boat will ferry you to the set down point on the island. Depending on whether the tide is low or high, will dictate how many steps you will have to climb. Once you’re at the top, the island is pretty flat, but to get up to the top there are quite a few steps to negotiate.
There is nothing on Skomer as far as cafes, restaurants are concerned. You can buy small bottle water at the starting point and again at the Farmhouse in the middle of the island but that’s it. So, you need to bring with you whatever you would like to eat for the day. You are usually on the island for 5 hours.
There’s no way around it at the moment, you can’t book tickets ahead of time, so if you want to visit, you have to queue for a ticket.
You buy your tickets to land on Skomer at Lockley Lodge, and at this point, they will allocate you a boat time, usually 10am, 11am, 12noon, but there are often extra trips put on when the queues are at their height. You can buy tickets with cash or card here.
To get to Martins Haven from us here at Fields Lodge is a very easy drive; you come out of the B&B and head to the lane junction.
You then take a left and go down the hill, at the bottom of the hill you will see a sign post for DALE, just follow this road, don’t come off it at all.
I took a visit to Skomer Island this week-into the last few days of the Puffins on the island for 2018. It has been a great year for Skomer Puffins–over 30,000 puffins were counted this year, and as far as a population is concerned, Skomer Puffins are bucking the trend, as other Puffin colonies elsewhere in the world are declining. So much so, that the Puffin is now classed as an endangered species.
How wonderful, the BBC have profiled the Puffins on Skomer Island!
I have long been an advocate of these fantastic birds. For me, they are such healing creatures, you cannot fail to watch a puffin and smile. They just make everything in the world alright. To see them clumsily trying to get airborne from the water is a delight. Watching them you would never think that they could fly the huge distances they do when they migrate from Skomer Island in late July each year.
Milford Waterfront is organising lots of events over the summer months. It’s great to see that the Port of Milford Haven has really got its’ eye on Tourism and making the Marina a ‘must visit’ place on the lists of locals and visitors alike.
July brings the beginning of the end of Puffin Season on Skomer Island.
The Puffins arrive in April for breeding season and then they reclaim their burrow from a previous year. They meet up with their partners and set about the business of breeding.
The Puffins have landed!!
The FIRST Puffin has landed onto Skomer Island! It’s only the 19th of March and we have the first one landed-that’s early! And that means that the numbers will just grow as the days move closer towards April, which is when they usually arrive.
Over this weekend just gone, a hundred puffins were seen rafting in North Haven, which is one of their favoured bays on Skomer.
This is exciting news as it’s always great to know that the Puffin is growing from strength to strength 3bvbjjin numbers on Skomer.
So, to celebrate, any booking made this week direct with us here at Fields Lodge will receive a free Puffin Pack!!
It’s Seal pup spotting time and we are very lucky to have some great sites right on our doorstep-well, 10 minutes away!
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