The rock underfoot on Skokholm is Old Red Sandstone, a rustier colour than neighbouring Skomer, a few miles north across the water. Ronald Lockley set up Britain’s first bird observatory here in 1933, ringing and studying the puffins and Manx shearwaters that still nest across the island. Shearwaters remain in huge numbers, around 50,000 pairs, and storm petrels breed in rock crevices around the coast — about 2,500 pairs, one of the most accessible colonies of this small, night-flying seabird in Britain.
The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales has owned Skokholm since 2006 and runs it as a bird observatory again, with full-board stays from April to October, most commonly three to seven nights. There are no day trips. You book a stay and cross by boat from Martin’s Haven on the Marloes Peninsula.
