I'd been asked by a friend if I could take a few shots of her dogs so that she could get one or two framed. All in all things went really well and I came away with quite a few shots I was happy with.

We finally made it onto Skomer Island and luckily enough it was a glorious, sunny day. Numbers visiting the island are limited to 250 visitors a day with boat tickets going on sale at 8.30am, on a first come first served basis. We arrived at 6.30am to make sure we got a place on the boat and although we were first in the queue all the ticket places available had been taken up by 7.30am. Our boat left at 9.30am and we made The Wick area of the island our first stop as I'd been told it can get very busy there. This paid off big time as it was relatively quiet (certainly compared to the afternoon) and the light was really good. The puffins nest on the headland in large numbers and fly in from sea with beaks full of sand eels to feed their young. Trying to catch one in flight proved impossible for me (they're not that big and fly really quickly) but once on the ground they're incredibly tame and not in the least bothered by people. I was more them able to get plenty of full frame shots with my 70-200mm zoom despite their small size. I'd had a few shots I wanted in mind and was quite pleased to leave the area an hour or so later with a few of my ideas in the camera.

We made our way back to the centre of the island hoping to get a few shots of the Short Eared Owls which had been flying around in that area the previous day. As it happened we did see one from a distance but we were never in the right place in the right time to get a reasonable shot. It was a similar story with the Little Owls although I did manage to get one shot all be it from quite a long way off. We spent the rest of the day walking the island and came away with a few shots of Razor Bills, various Gulls, pippets and Oyster Catchers.

We returned to The Wick prior to getting the boat back but the light was really harsh and the area quite crowded. All in all though the island is a great day out, whether or not you go for the photography. A lot of people were there for that reason and some of the equipment hanging off peoples necks was eye boggling. 600mm primes and top notch cameras everywhere. Good for the owls but not really necessary for the puffins. We left at 3.30pm, really tired but having thoroughly enjoyed our day out and came away with some really pleasing shots.