Northumberland, Inner Farne Island, Puffins
10th June, Northumberland
My primary reason for returning to Northumberland this time of the year was to visit the Inner Farne Island and photograph puffins. I was there last year and it was spectacular. I used the same boat company as before called Serendipity. The boats leave from The little port of Seahouses. The tour was about three hours which consisted of 15 minutes sailing out to the islands, a cruise around the islands, looking at the nesting areas for Guillemots and Razorbills, and then finally landing for an hour on the Inner Farne island itself. As with last year, you wear a hat and hope the Arctic Terns don’t pack your head too much as you get off the boat and move inland. After 50 yards you’ve passed the Terns and you then into the core of the island which was litterted with puffins. You keep to a boardwalk approximately 2 m wide as either side of the boardwalk aew the puffins nesting burrows. As I found last year, these are very hard birds to photograph. They fly very fast, probably directly at you and then drop into the nest with the catch of sand deals. The hour goes so quickly and I came away with a couple of thousand photographs to then see through. It is addictive and I will return.
