Wildlife Photographic Journals

Seabird Safari - Part 3

I had the best of intentions as I stepped of the boat on to the small concrete land stage of Staple Island, with some thoughts of the photos that I wanted to get. However, as soon I arrived at the top of the short path from the boat and caught the sight of puffins at close range the plans quickly dissolved away and 'puffin fever' took over. They are such photogenic birds and very distracting.

In fact they are distracting to the point that I actually photographed little else during the short time on Staple Island.

I did a few flight photographs but the light was awkward.

So in the end I decided on taking some portraits. These two birds made for a colourful dispute.

I am a big fan of the 'over the shoulder look portrait' and it suits puffins particularly well.

To finish off this festival of all things puffin, one particular bird came in with a very full beak of fish and landed at close range and sat their looking a little bemused for about 10 minutes which allowed plenty of time to get some full frame head photographs.

The short time on Staple Island was cut short by 30 minutes by an increasing swell and rapidly moving tide. The next destination was Inner Farne Island for which I had a well formed plan from which no puffin was going to distract me.