The Farnes and back

I got back yesterday from a fantastic couple of days around Northumberland to make the most of a week's holiday from work. In spring and summer the Northumberland coast is home to tens of thousands of sea birds which breed in dense colonies around the nearby Farne Islands; there's no doubting the highlight of my trip...

I knew it was going to be special but it wasn't until I boarded one of Billy Shiel's all-day boat trips from Seahouses harbour on Wednesday that I could appreciate the scale of this seething mass of bird life. Wherever I looked, birds continually fizzed overhead like odd-shaped bullets fired from the sea, the cliffs wailed and shifted with the presence of thousand upon thousand of Guillemots, Razorbills, Puffins... In short, it was astounding and simply one of the most remarkable wildlife encounters I've ever experienced:

Grey seals and Staple Island

A wall of auks, the sight that greets you

A Puffin takes flight as a Fulmar looks on

The money shot: Puffin (Fratercula arctica) on Staple Island

Razorbills (Alca torda)

Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla)

Shags (Phalacrocorax aristotelis)

A Guillemot (Uria aalge) feeding its chick -
note the white eyering and marking of the 'bridled' variety

Staple Island was the first stop and stepping onto the area roped off for visitors, you instantly came face to face with birds normally seen at distance, flashing by over waves or huddled up on rocks. The steps from the jetty were lined with guillemots, shags and puffins - some on nests, some with young already wobbling between them. It was incredible to be able to peer into this private part of their lives, birds at their most tender and frantic. At one point I sat no more than two meters from a pair of Shags as they courted, each wrapping their slender neck and bill around the other, it felt oddly voyeuristic but it was a privilege and genuinely moving. It was funny too to watch puffins land with full bills of small fish, only to get instantly mugged by roving gangs of Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed gulls who've clearly realised that there's no need to go for food when it readily comes to them. To avoid losing their meal, the puffins would either fly off again or charge down the nearest burrow and if it wasn't theirs, emerge slyly and scurry off again with gulls in pursuit - all that was missing was the Benny Hill theme.

After Staple Island the boat crossed to Inner Farne, an island where one iconic bird in particular rules supreme:

Paradise City: Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) on nest 

The courtyard on Inner Farne

The Arctic terns that met us off the boat are a fearsomely characterful mob, the island is theirs and they know it. The sky was full of their elegant shapes and clattering cries and it's true that they nest just about everywhere there. I received numerous pecks to head and just like that guy above, my favourite birding cap is definitely in need of a wash now. What ace birds though: noisy, feisty and with an annual migration that covers some 45,000 miles, true wanderers of the bird world. Amazing stuff. Joining them were Common and Sandwich terns, more auks, kittiwakes and at least one pair of Eider. Passerines on the islands I visited were limited to a single Rock Pipit and Pied Wagtail and two swallows were present also.

In a year which started with Puffin wrecks along the north and east coasts and thousands more breeding sea birds killed or affected by the polyisobutene (PIB) chemical spill in the south west, these islands are a reminder of the wealth our seas offer. Simply stunning.

Rock Pipit (Anthus petrosus), Seahouses harbour, 25/6/13

Looking out to Inner Farne

Sunset over Bamburgh Castle, 26/6/13