Living The Wildlife

The Skelligs (6x5)

Air date: Apr 15, 2014

This week Colin visits the Skelligs, one of Ireland’s most beautiful world heritage sites for a truly unique filming opportunity. In this episode, Colin visits one of Ireland’s most beautiful world heritage sites for a truly unique filming opportunity. Peppered with ancient beehive dwellings, this remote monastic outcrop off the Kerry coast is home to brightly-coloured puffins, elusive Manx shearwater, predatory gulls and the biggest gannet breeding colony in Ireland. Puffins spend only four months of the year on the island, taking to the open seas in winter. Timing his visit to coincide with theirs, Colin gets a rare opportunity to observe these unusually monogamous creatures as they prepare to hatch and raise their only chick in the island’s honeycomb of underground burrows. At night, the island becomes a fascinating and eerie world where the haunting calls of the Manx Shearwater pierce the air. These nocturnal creatures normally breed in the same warrens as the puffins but, on this island, Colin has discovered something quite remarkable. In an extremely unusual move, one plucky shearwater couple have set up home in one of the beehives, giving Colin a unique opportunity to film a rare and magical sight.