Skellig Michael’s puffin population is “plentiful this season”, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has confirmed.
Photographer Valerie O’Sullivan recently captured the birds on the rock, noting they were busy breeding and fattening their chicks on sand-eel and sprat.
Last year, the NPWS had expressed concerned about the earlier than normal departure of the seabirds from the UNESCO world heritage site, also known as Sceilg Mhichíl, 12 km off the Kerry coast.
Results from the NPWS’s May 2023 survey had indicated count of puffins “favourable with previous counts since NPWS started monitoring puffin on the island” in the 1990s.
Puffins arrive in thousands every April to breed on Skellig Michael – returning to the same nesting sites and staying until early August.
NPWS estimates that there are well over 8,000 puffins on Skellig Michael, similar to last year's numbers.
Video by Valerie o'Sullivan
The nest sites are found in burrows or in cracks and crevices across the island which offers protection to pufflings, as puffin chicks are called, from avian predators.
Skellig Michael is a Statutory Nature Reserve, a Special Protection Area, and part of Páirc Náisiúnta na Mara, Ciarrai – the State’s first marine park.
NPWS has issued a reminder to “let our wildlife stay wild”.
Last week, a debate about whether puffin chicks are referred to as “pufflings” or chicks was resolved by RTÉ Radio 1 Countrywide presenter Philip Boucher-Hayes.
Boucher-Hayes visited Skellig Michael to speak to Office of Public Works (OPW) guides on the issue. You can listen to the results of his consultation here
