Puffin Boat Trip to the Farne Islands - Part 3

 

And the finale! The namesake of the trip, Puffins. 

If you haven't seen the first two parts of this, I do encourage you to pop by quickly to have a peek at all of the other photos and read about our trip.

Find them below:
Part One
Part Two

At this point, the choppy seas had my seasickness in full force. The only thing that made me raise my head from my lap was the birds and trying to get as many shots as I could. As I explained in the previous posts the rain, dull light and now movement of the boat were all against me and I really struggled to get in focus shots where my lens wasn't blurred by water. Obviously, I was also a little concerned about my camera in general because I don't have a waterproof housing for it and absolutely everything was drenched.

If you have looked at the previous posts you'd have seen that we had already seen plenty of Puffins, both bobbing about in the sea and flying past, however, this last port of call was the island on which they nest. Unlike a lot of the other sea birds we'd seen that nest on the rock faces and such, Puffins nest in burrows in the ground so seeing an actual nest, egg or Puffling was improbable but seeing the Puffins themselves sitting and hopping around was lovely!

Over the approximately two hours we were on the boat we were lucky enough to see a huge range of the wonderful sea birds were blessed with in this country including Guillemot, Puffin, Razorbill, Kittiwake, Herring Gull, Gannet, Fulmar, Black-Backed Gull, Shag, Arctic Tern, Eider Duck (& chicks!), Ringed Plover, Cormorant, Black Headed Gull and some Grey Seal too!
I was equally as excited to see every single bird and despite ending up completely and utterly drenched to the skin and feeling a little seasick, it was a truly fantastic experience.

The company we chose to go with should be credited highly with the success of our day and I cannot recommend them enough. While we were sitting outside away from all of the other passengers a member of the crew made a point to come out and talk to us too, then as we approached a section of higher rocks where the boat was able to get quite close, another crew member told us we could go upstairs for a better view which was so exciting! We actually ended up staying up there and so had a whole level of the boat to ourselves and could see in every direction.
If you are considering a boat trip to the Farne Islands you really should check out Serenity Farne Island Boat Tours. They do a whole host of different tours (the Puffin Cruise is only run May 1st to 31st July during the breeding season), where you can see and learn about not only the wildlife but of course St Cuthbert and Grace Darling. 

I couldn't end this post without touching upon the utterly devastating Avian Flu epidemic. The bird flu outbreak has been confirmed on our beloved North East coast and thousands of seabirds have been affected. The situation is ongoing, has ripped through breeding colonies and is a total tragedy for our natural world.
If you see a dead or dying bird, please do not touch it. Keep away your dogs and children. Report it as soon as possible to the Defra helpline 03459 33 55 77.
To help, you can also Text FARNE to donate £5 or FARNE10 to donate £10 and help the rangers who are working at the forefront tackling the clean-up and trying to stop the spread.
Find out more about the Farne Islands here > Farne Islands | National Trust


Finally, our wildlife is a precious and extremely special thing. A decline in numbers of all species has been particularly prevalent this year with the Avian Flu and of course the extreme weather and temperature changes. We must protect them at all costs. Climate change, overfishing, pollution and disturbance are some of the biggest threats so please do what you can to help our wildlife not only survive, but thrive.

Until next time...