Puffin along

I used to have a day-trip over to Wales with two of my friends from work. It was regarded with a lot of humour as it wasn't a typical lads-trip: we were going to Skomer to photograph puffins! This small island off the Pembrokeshire coast is a magnet for both these comical birds and those who want to photograph them. We stopped going a few years ago though, mainly due to the issues with getting a place on the boat across. Recently they have changed the system and you can guarantee a place by booking online. So, Judith and I crossed our fingers on the weather being kind to us and booked to go this year. 

The boat trip is a short one, only about 10 minutes from Martins Haven to the island. It was a five hour drive to get there though, so we stayed overnight nearby at a lovely pub called the Cambrian Arms in Solva. It even had rooks right outside our bedroom window.

A full Welsh breakfast fuelled us up for the day and we were on the 11am crossing to the island. The photos below were taken by the two of us, and I've not tried to separate them out so joint credit for them all!

As soon as you get off the boat you are greeted by puffins. There are over 35000 on the island this year, apparently a record number. This is rare to hear nowadays its the daily stories of declines in bird populations and the appalling news of the deaths caused by the bird-flu epidemic. Partty this is down to the excellent work of the volunteers and staff on the island in keeping rats away from the island.

Skomer is only a mile or so long and about half that wide, so easily walkable in the 4 1/2 hours you are there. The puffins are on the edges, nesting in burrows overlooking the coast.They arrive in early Spring, occupy their nests, mate, lay their eggs, raise the young and are gone again by late July. During that time the island is buzzing with activity. When we were there the young were still in the burrows keeping out of sight of the predatory gulls but you occasionally caught sight of an adult poking its head out or greeting its mate.

Mainly though you saw the adults standing around either on the cliff edge or surrounded by the lovely flowers within which a lot of their burrows were hidden.

These flowers and grasses also gave them good and plentiful bedding for their nests underground.

It is very east to anthropomorphise with puffins, as they all seem to have characters. Certainly you got groups standing around that seemed to be having conversations. Unlike other communal nesters like gannets, who are continually bickering, the puffins seemed to get on rather well together - well mainly!

From a photography point of view there are two "money shots" you try to get whilst you are there  -carrying sand-eels and with their beak open. The sand-eels are the food they bring back for their young in the burrows. Its an amazing sight as you can't work out how they get so many in their beaks at once. As they have to carry the fish back to there burrow from some distance it is much more efficient to do this with a beak-full, often 12 or more fish.

The trick to it comes when you see inside of the beaks when they "yawn".

They use their long tongue to push the fish inside their beaks. They then hold them in place with the backward-facing spines on their upper-palate whilst they catch some more!!! The other trick is to avoid predation as they come in with the fish. The gulls hang around waiting for them to fly in and then mug them, trying to get them to drop the fish and give the gull a free meal. Consequently, the puffins fly-in at great speed and often dive straight into their burrows without hanging around.

Sometimes though they either came up short or their burrows were not easily reached and they had to run the gauntlet of hungry gulls and photographers legs to get to their hungry chicks. This was exceptionally comical though I suspect they had worked out that as long as they kept near to us then the gulls were less of a problem!

The highlight of the trip though is just to spend so much time with these lovely little birds. They are exceptionally tame, or at least unwary or people, and you can get a real insight into their lives. It is a trip of a lifetime and one I am sure we will be making again next year!