My first visit was to spend a day on Skomer Island in May, driving down the night before and camping on the mainland nearby. With a few hours to spare before the boat was due to leave I decided to call in at the Bosherton Lily Ponds, part of the Stackpole Estate and reputed to be the best place in Wales to see otters. As I was leaving just after dawn a young fox appeared in the next field and posed nicely for me with a dead magpie it had found.

I've paid three visits to Skomer this summer and they were all superb. In my opinion it's the best wildlife experience in the UK and as good as anything anywhere in the world. Puffins are enchanting creatures, completely unafraid of people and in May and June there are literally thousands of them nesting on Skomer.

There's a lot more to the island than just puffins though. Together with nearby Skokholm (see below) its home to over half the world's Manx shearwaters with more than 350,000 pairs, making it the world's most important breeding colony. Thousands of other seabirds also breed on the islands, including guillemot, razorbill, kittiwake, fulmar and storm petrel as well as peregrines, choughs and short-eared owls.

Skokholm island is located next to Skomer and has very similar wildlife. It's not open to the public for day visits but a small number of people are allowed to stay, and I was lucky enough to spend for four nights on the island in July. With only solar panels for power, limited phone signal and no wifi or showers its a great place to shut out the chaos of the modern world, relax and enjoy nature.

The shearwaters are the most important inhabitants, but they spend all day out at sea and only return to their nest burrows after dark. Flash photography isn't allowed so the best way to record them is with infra-red camera traps which the wardens Richard and Giselle kindly helped me set up. You can see some of the results here.

Beyond Skomer and Skokholm heading out into the Irish Sea there are several smaller islands before the ocean floor drops steeply into a deep channel known as the Celtic Deep. This area has its own special wildlife and I made several visits during the summer.

The biggest of the islands is Grassholm. Located 13km off the Pembrokeshire coast, it shines bright white as the summer sun reflects off a thick covering of guano from a huge gannet colony that makes up 10% of the world population.