Puffins and Terns

I now strongly feel I'm playing catch up on summer events and not winning.

Anyway, just over two weeks ago Vicki, Alex and I achieved a target by taking the Coquet Island boat trip.  On the way we made a brief trip to the Hauxley reserve, which however was somewhat disappointing.  The water was low, species fairly limited and the low sun made it hard to identify what was there.

We did catch up with some female eider ducks and thought we saw some little grebe but others were harder to identify.

Female Eider

? Duck

I was for example uncertain about the bird on the right above.

In fact we had better luck with non-avian species, coming across small tortoiseshell, common blue and common blue damselfly.

Common Blue

Common Blue Damselfly

Of course avian flu has been a factor all along the Northumberland coast but you wouldn't have thought so on sailing round Coquet Island, where there were still birds in big numbers.  Apparently the RSPB warden has been bagging up any dead birds for disposal.  A large number of atlantic seals just off the island suggested they had plenty to be interested in as well.

The main reason for going was to see the puffins for the first time and we saw plenty, even flying across our path when we were still a little way off the island.  There was a bit of a swell on and it was hard to hold the camera steady to get pictures with the boat tossing around.  But perseverance paid off in the end.

Puffin

Puffins

The rare roseate terns were also present and I could see the area where they were supposed to be.  Unfortunately I couldn't get clear photographs at all and could only really identify common, arctic and (without realising it at the time) sandwich tern.

Terns

The sandwich tern is the large, white bird in the centre of the near foreground above.  The arctic terns have lighter tail and trailers than the common terns - or so I understand.

Arctic Tern

But it was the puffins who were the real entertainment.