Manx Shearwater Nights on Skomer

Most people go to Skomer for puffins and leave on the afternoon boat. They miss the thing the island is actually most important for.

Skomer and neighbouring Skokholm hold the largest Manx shearwater colony on earth — a substantial share of the entire world population nests in burrows across these two islands. The birds spend the day far out at sea. They only come back after dark, because gulls will kill them in daylight, and they arrive in their hundreds of thousands.

What it is like. Complete darkness, no lights on the island, and a noise that is genuinely hard to describe: a chorus of cackling, wailing calls coming out of the ground under your feet and from birds crash-landing around you. Shearwaters cannot walk properly — their legs are set for swimming — so they thump down and shuffle to their burrows. Standing still in the middle of it, with the Milky Way overhead because there is no light pollution for miles, is the best hour anyone spends in Pembrokeshire.

How to do it. Only by staying overnight. The island has a small number of self-catering bed spaces run by the wildlife trust, they are booked out extremely early, and you take all your own food across on the boat.

The honest bit. There is no shortcut. No evening trip, no viewing from the mainland, and a moonlit night means fewer birds come in. Book a year out, take a red torch rather than a white one, and accept that the crossing home can be delayed by weather. See the Skokholm and Grassholm guide for the neighbouring islands.