IT’S noon and through the salty-aired sunshine flies a short-eared owl. The raptor scythes low over the island meadow, its moon face scanning the undergrowth, its broad wings outstretched. For several minutes it glides and turns, before suddenly—whomp!—it drops and pounces, claws spread. I lose sight of the bird in the grass, but, when it doesn’t reappear, I know the outcome of the hunt. Owl one; vole nil.
I’m on Skomer, a small island a mile or so off the Pembrokeshire coast. The boat crossing from the mainland takes about 15 minutes, but the voyage is transportive in more ways than one. Here, the world is a little wilder. Beds of bracken and bluebells froth above plunging cliffs as grey seals swish through rocky inlets. Porpoises swim in the swell, guillemots skim the waves and gannets range the skies, poised to dive-bomb any wrong-place-wrong-time fish.
Despite its size—it covers only 720 acres—Skomer serves up one of Britain’s richest wildlife tapestries, particularly during the seabird breeding months of spring and early summer. ‘The Normans actually used to farm rabbits here,’ one of the wardens
