Shearwaters, puffins and seas as clear as the Med

Bardsey Island, off the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales, is a summer playground for birdwatchers, says Brian Jackman

High summer in North Wales, and holidaymakers are not the only visitors to the Llyn Peninsula. On Bardsey Island, thousands of Manx shearwaters fill the night skies with their unearthly caterwauling as they return to breed in their cliff-side burrows; and on the Gwylan Islands off Aberdaron, hundreds of puffins are busily feeding their chicks.

Follow the coastal footpath from Aberdaron and the further you travel the stronger the feeling of the land running out. Below the path lie sandy coves and beaches, each sheltered by haggard headlands and lapped by an emerald sea so clear it could be the Mediterranean. But this is the Llyn Peninsula, a tapering finger of patchwork fields and brooding hilltops separating Caernarvon Bay from Tremadoc Bay.

The final stretch is criss-crossed by lanes barely wide enough for a car, many leading to nowhere but lonely farmhouses high above the sea, until at last you are standing on the cliffs at Braich y Pwll with nothing between you and the blue horizon but the whale-backed silhouette of Bardsey Island.

The comparisons with Cornwall are everywhere: in the dolmens and standing stones, the Dark Age saints and holy wells, the smell of the bracken and the crying gulls. But there the likeness ends and Llyn’s empty beaches are a revelation. Among the loveliest are the famous whistling sands of Porth Oer, a bathing cove on the north coast. At every step they squeak underfoot as if you have accidentally trod on a kitten. When I was there on a sunny morning in peak season, I counted no more than a dozen families. Had it been Polzeath or Newquay, the beach would have been packed.

Looking back up the peninsula from the National Trust viewpoint at Carreg, above Porth Oer, what you see is a dragon’s spine of volcanic summits receding through broken light and shadow towards the dim outlines of Snowdonia. Llyn’s loftiest point is Yr Eifl, 1,850ft high, with an Iron Age fort on its flanks and views of Anglesey, the immense arc of Cardigan Bay and even the Wicklow Mountains on a clear day.

The National Trust’s oak-leaf symbol is a frequent sight, not only in the gardens of Plas y Rhiw above Cardigan Bay but also at its new Porth y Swnt interpretation centre in Aberdaron and along the 30 miles of coast it has acquired, including most of the cliffs and headlands looking out to Bardsey at the toe-end of the peninsula.

Having clocked up a number of British islands over the years I was desperate to add Bardsey to the list. And so, on a perfect morning, I walked down the narrow valley that leads to Porth Meudwy, the lobster fishermen’s cove west of Aberdaron from which Colin Evans runs daily boat trips.

We completed the two-mile crossing to Bardsey in 15 minutes with gannets circling overhead. A porpoise appeared, and then moments later we were out of the clutch of the riptides and at rest in the harbour, a mere cleft in the rocks called Y Cafn. Waiting to greet us were at least 150 seals Porthdinllaen, above, is typical of the small coves on the Llyn Peninsula where puffins, below, come to feed on sand eels For further information about the area, see nationaltrust. org.uk/days-out/ regionwales/llyn Llyn essentials Where to stay:

Plas Bodegroes, near Pwllheli (01758 612363; telegraph.co.uk/ plasbodegroes) is an idyllic Georgian manor house; doubles from £140 with breakfast; fourcourse dinner £49.

The National Trust (0344 335 1287; nationaltrustcottages. co.uk) has several holiday properties on Llyn, from £406 a week for a cottage for two at Porthdinllaen.

Where to eat: Twnti Seafood Restaurant, Rhyd-y-clafdy, near Pwllheli (01758 740929; twntiseafood.co.uk). Still the best restaurant on the Peninsula; local lobsters are a speciality.

What to see:

Bardsey Island: Colin Evans runs daily boat trips to Bardsey from Porth Meudwy, allowing up to four hours ashore; £30 adults, £20 children under 14 (07971 769895; bardseyboattrips.com).

Llyn Coast Path: walkers can explore the whole of Llyn’s National Heritage Coastline by following the 91-mile-long path that hugs the peninsula from end to end, forming one of the most spectacular stretches of the Wales Coast Path (walescoastpath.gov.uk).

Porthdinllaen: flanked by cliffs riddled with sand martins’ burrows, this gorgeous horseshoeshaped bay is ideal for swimming, snorkelling and kayaking. For a pub lunch, visit the 200-year-old Ty Coch Inn (01758 720498; tycoch.co.uk), sitting right on the beach.

Plas yn Rhiw (pictured above) in Rhiw, near Abersoch, is an absolute jewel. The house – 16thcentury with Georgian additions – is small, as are the sheltered gardens with their hydrangeas and tree ferns; but the views across Cardigan Bay rank among the loveliest in Britain (01758 780219; nationaltrust.org.uk).

Porth y Swnt in Aberdaron (01758 703810; nationaltrust.org.uk/porthy-swnt), the Trust’s new interpretation centre, provides visitors with an insight into Llyn’s unique culture and way of life. hauled out on the seaweed-smelling shores. Their mournful voices rose and fell on the wind, adding to the sense of isolation.

There are no cars on Bardsey, no TV or mains electricity – only a handful of residents, a lighthouse, a scattering of houses and farm buildings and a boathouse. The springy turf, starred with wildflowers and untouched by commercial fertilisers, reminded me of the Outer Hebrides, and I could see why this has been a place of refuge since the dawn of Christianity.

For Evans, who has been bringing visitors here for 11 years, Bardsey has always had a special significance. This was where his grandfather lived and farmed, and where he spent his school holidays. “There’s a soul and spirit here,” he said. “It goes back 10,000 years and it has made me what I am.”

The Vikings called it Bardsey (the Bards’ Island) but its Welsh name is Ynys Enlli (“the island of the tides”). Reputed to be the burial place of 20,000 saints, it was once a famous place of pilgrimage. Three journeys to Bardsey were considered equal to one visit to Rome. Now, nothing remains except its medieval abbey ruins, and the island sleeps on – 400 acres of sheep-nibbled fields and a modest mountain, wrapped in dreams of Merlin entombed in a glass tower and nothing to disturb its ancient silence except the seals by day and at night the eerie cries of Manx shearwaters returning to their burrows.

The shearwaters are ocean wanderers, spending the winter more than 6,200 miles away off Brazil; but in springtime 16,000 pairs return to nest on Bardsey. By day the adults fly out to sea, boomeranging among the waves on outstretched wings, returning only at night to feed their chicks when the marauding gulls have gone to roost.

Bardsey is a birdwatcher’s heaven – hence the presence of the Bird and Field Observatory founded in 1953. Several pairs of choughs breed here every year and all kinds of rarities turn up on migration, including hoopoes and woodchat shrikes. In recent years a 40-strong colony of puffins – perhaps an offshoot from the Gwylan Islands, has established itself. In summer the warm currents swirling around the Llyn Peninsula attract dense shoals of sand eels, the puffin’s favourite prey, and with careful management there is no reason why these endearingly comical seabirds should not continue to increase on Bardsey.

The island has been owned by the Bardsey Island Trust since 1979, and was declared a National Nature Reserve in 1986. But, as Evans was at pains to point out, there is more to Bardsey than wildlife conservation.

“You can hear skylarks singing,” he said, “but this is also a place where men still fish the seas and farm the land, maintaining a way of life that has lasted for centuries – and that is what makes it different from other Welsh islands.” On Bardsey, people matter, too.