Puffins

I went on a trip to the Isle of May with work today. I had never been to the island before and I was completely overwhelmed with the number of birds there when we arrived. I asked the guide how many puffins nested there and he said 90,000 pairs! They are only one of about 50 different breeds of birds on the island so I'm sure you can begin to imagine the numbers that filled the sky and island.

We were warned that the Terns had decided to nest next to the only path onto the island so the guide suggested that we were hats and walk quickly through this section to avoid them attacking us. Unfortunately I was the unlucky one in our group and despite following all of the suggestions a healthy sized Tern decided to stomp on my head! I have to say it was very sore and even as I sit writing this my head is still sore, if you've ever seen the Terns diving into the sea to catch fish it was somewhat like that although the stopping point was my head! Oh well I can't complain too much at least I know they are good parents!

All in all it was a spectacular day and a trip I would recomment to any bird lover, even on a wet day like today there is plenty to see and we were told that the up side of the rain was that more of the puffins were sitting on the island rather than being out at sea. See I told you the rain isn't all bad ;)