A beautiful Welsh island is offering for people to stay for free – as long as you’re willing to count puffins.
Skomer Island, located just off the coast of southwest Wales, is known for its puffins, which arrive in large numbers to nest each year in May.
The island is managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales (WTSWW).
Currently, the WTSWW is seeking applicants to spend months on the island to contribute to its conservation efforts.
The WTSWW’s official website is advertising for three long-term volunteers, one to work from March to July, another from April to August and a third from July to September.
There’s also a seabird monitoring volunteer position available from May to June.
The trust explains: ‘Our long-term volunteers form an integral part of the island team.
‘They assist with the day-to-day running of the island and support the wardens, visitor officer and field worker with visitor engagement and wildlife monitoring.
Volunteers are needed to count the puffins on Skomer Island
‘Successful applicants will gain experience in visitor engagement and monitoring techniques (i.e. seabirds, breeding birds, butterflies, moths, marine mammals, etc.) on a National Nature Reserve.
‘Additionally, long-term volunteers will gain experience in path and infrastructure maintenance with training being provided in the use of relevant tools and equipment.’
It adds: ‘In spring, the focus is on our breeding seabirds – so that’ll mean Puffin counts and assisting with boat counts of seabird species.
‘In summer, the focus moves to chick productivity, whilst in autumn the focus of our work is on Grey Seal monitoring and some of our other species including Skomer Voles, reptiles, cetaceans and moths.’
Aside from contributing to the vital project, there are other perks to the roles.
Volunteers will receive free accommodation including bills on Skomer, as well as travel expenses to and from Skomer (from within the UK) including parking, among other perks.
The island’s visitor officer Rob Knott told the BBC its at-risk puffins were ‘absolutely iconic birds’ and counting them was ‘quite a job’.
He said the process of counting them involves checking the island section by section, with a focus on counting two hours before sunset, when more puffins are on land.
Skomer Island, sitauted off the south-west Wales coast
He added: ‘We get our clickers out and we count all the ones on the land, then the sea and the ones in the air as well.’
Puffins are listed as vulnerable to extinction on the Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List.
The island currently has more than 40,000 Puffins, and is an internationally important seabird island.
Puffins start arriving on Skomer in mid-April and are present from May-July.
