Island life

 One of the highlights of our trip to Northumberland was going to be a boat trip out to the Farne Islands. Surprisingly, seeing as it one of the premier birding sights in the UK, we have not been before. The only potential downside was that the boat operators are in dispute with the National Trust over landing rights. Seemingly the NT are trying to monetise the islands and the boat operators are saying the cost to them is too high. Still, we were on the 12 o'clock Billy Shiels seabird boat out to go round the islands on a perfect, still, sunny day.

The trip takes around 20 minutes to get to the Inner Farne, but before you get there you can see, smell and hear the thousands of seabirds. 

Mostly they were guillemots, packing the ledges and diving into the sea when a large gull flew past!

Over the hour we were there we visited most of the main islands - Inner and Outer, Brownsman and all the others. They were subtly different but all were packed with life.

What photos can't capture is the whole sensory experience. When a few hundred birds suddenly decide to take to the water or to the air it is deafening. It is also very hard to know where to look with all the activity going on all around you. 

Most of the birds were guillemots. As the boat cruised underneath the cliffs they would peer down at you. I can't believe they are surprised by people as so many boats visit them every day!

Every so often a group would dive for the sea below them, creating another wave of action.

Mixed in amongst them were a few "bridled" guillemots. These are just a plumage variation, with an eye-ring and a rakish white down-tick behind the eye.  

All around the boat of course were birds flying around which were much harder to catch with the camera. In fact, you can't start to see how large flocks confuse predators, as it was very difficult to focus on one bird with so many wheeling around you and distracting your attention.

Without even realising it at the time we even managed to capture one of the bridled ones in flight.

Closely related to the guillemots were the razorbills, with their distinctive, chunky bill. and black plumage. They were much less numerous but held their own against the guillemots,

and picking on one of my favourite gulls, the delicate kittiwake.

It may  be slightly anthropomorphic but they did seem to have a satisfied look on their faces after the encounters!

On the cliffs they were bust claiming territory and also their conjugal rights, all of which added to the cacophony of bird calls all around us.

Of course, the bird everybody wanted to see was the iconic puffin. I presumed we would definitely see some, but I wasn't prepared for how many there were on the islands. Of course, without being able to land we couldn't see their burrows on the interior of the island but they formed large rafts on the sea.

They seem to be quite nervous birds, even on the sea and most of the time would either fly off or dive under the water when the boat approached. I presume this is because they are at the bottom of the food chain against gulls and skuas who will steal their food and even eat them if they can! Some remained long enough to capture that beak in all its glory.

Mostly your were seeing them fly past with rapid wing beats, a bit like multicoloured bees!

or you could try and pick the moment when they decided to fly away from the approaching boat.

With their nest holes in the middle of the island and presumably no chicks yet we saw very few on the cliffs and none with the iconic beard of sand-eels! A couple of times we did manage to get close enough to them to take a few photos as they interacted with each other or posed nicely for the cameras. 

Often overlooked or confused with the ever-present on inland reservoirs cormorant, were shags. They are smaller and in my opinion much more elegant. Only really seen on rocky coasts they were resplendent in their green breeding plumage, posing away on the lower rocks. Some were starting to, I guess, form pairs as they were quite quarrelsome.

Others were sitting on rocks drying out after going fishing. Like cormorants they have to dry their feathers after fishing as they don't have as much oil as some birds and can get a bit waterlogged!

Of course, they were also one of the multitude of birds flying over and round the boat, the sun glinting off their green feathers.

As with most seabird colonies, you don't get dozens of different species, as you would say in a salt-marsh environment, although what you do get make up for it numbers. As well as the auks a lot of kittiwakes were nesting on the cliffs, with their distinctive kitty-waak call echoing off the surrounding cliffs. 

A lot of them are already paired up and sitting on nests, although from this angle we couldn't see if there were any eggs laid in it.

I think they always have a very "soft" expression on their faces, something you don't often see as away from their colonies you mainly see them drifting past out to sea.

Often found together, but not that closely related are the fulmars. These are actually tubenoses and more closely related to the albatrosses, which you can see as they sail over the waves on their stiff wings. There weren't many of them here but one group rather atypically was sitting quietly in a bay.

Last, but not least, was the grey seals on the Outer Farnes. A large colony were mooching around on the rocks at the furthest point from land. In the background you can see the famous Grace Darling lighthouse, or at least the modern version.

They were not worried about the boat coming to within a few yards of them as they dozed, quarrelled and slipped into the sea.

We also saw arctic terns but only distantly. Worryingly, they are normally one of the common nesters but last year they failed and this they have not even started nesting. Very worrying and we wondered whether it was due to the fact no human residents were on the island keeping predators away. A few eiders were around as well but mainly distant as well.

All in all a brilliant day. The boat was superbly handled and, in this strange time, only 12 of us on it meant we were in glorious isolation! The weather was perfect, the birds performed well and it very much loved up to expectation. Definitely a trip to be recommended and one we will take again when we come back.