Cardigan Island/Ynys Aberteifi

In 1934 the liner Herefordshire ran aground on Cardigan Island (Ynys Aberteifi), and rats that came ashore from the wreck wiped out its puffins and Manx shearwaters, neither of which has returned since. A guidebook in the 1890s called the island’s puffins ‘Welsh parrots’, and some 25 to 30 pairs were still nesting there in 1924, a decade before the wreck. The island itself, some 38 acres at the mouth of the River Teifi, is managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales as a reserve, and its cliffs and grassy top now hold guillemots, razorbills, cormorants, shags and fulmars, with grey seals in the caves below. You can’t land, but wildlife boat trips out of Cardigan, Gwbert and Poppit Sands pass close by, and the island is also visible from Cardigan Island Coastal Farm Park on the Gwbert headland.