Puffins

Island Life – Part 2 – Birds & Mammals

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I thought it would only take me a day or two to write part 2 of this, but with 2 heatwaves this month, my productivity (always dubious at the best of times) has plummeted. But here at last are some of the gorgeous birds and mammals we saw on the Isles of Scilly in June.

I took a couple of bird-watching boat trips; one with my long-suffering family and one alone when they’d had enough of me. The Scillies are a fantastic place to spot seabirds; it made me wish I was better at identifying them. So please feel free to correct me if I’ve got any of these wrong. As so often is the case, I didn’t really have the right camera lens with me and that combined with rocking boats and user error, means none of these are exactly amazing photos, but hopefully they’re recognisable at least.

First up, what I am assuming to be a Black-headed Gull, due to its black head! I realise though there are other species that would fit this somewhat basic description, so please correct me if I’m wrong.

The next one I am at least confident is an Oystercatcher, although it does to my eye look quite like the penguin from Wallace & Gromit with a red beak stuff on it! Again a shockingly bad photo and I can’t even blame a rocking boat for this one as I think I took it from land.

 

We saw a few Shags, often standing looking quite aloof with a crowd of other birds nearby. Seen alone they are quite gawky looking birds and I always think there’s something a bit archaic about them.

One of the few seabirds I can readily recognise is the Gannet. It’s distinctive enough that it’s pretty much unmistakeable.  This one floated serenely by the boat, looking as if it had recently had a right good feed.

There were of course lots of large gulls present everywhere. We passed a fisherman, hauling in lobster pots at one point and the sky around his boat was just full of an assortment of gulls. Some have black backs (Black-backed gulls?), some have grey backs – to my disappointment there doesn’t seem to be one called a Grey-backed Gull, so I’m guessing these are Herring Gulls?

All the seabirds above are beautiful, but I can’t help having a soft spot for the Auk family. Apparently there are 5 species seen regularly in the UK and we were lucky enough to see 3 of these. The most plentiful that week were the Guillemots – sleek black/dark brown and white birds, gathering in groups on the rocks and in the water.

Then there were the Razorbills; I never saw these on the rocks, only in the water and often swimming with the Guillemots too. Razorbills are named for their famously sharp-edged beaks, ideal for grabbing fish.

But of course top of the wish list was to see Puffins and thankfully we did. The Skipper wouldn’t take the boat too close to the cliffs where the puffins were nesting as we didn’t want to disturb them, but we were close enough to see several outside their burrows.

Then there were the ones we saw on the water. It’s no surprise that they are everyone’s favourite seabird; what’s not to love about those cheeky little faces.

So on to the mammals. I did see a split-second glimpse of a dolphin from the Scillonian on the way back to the mainland, but that was it as far as cetaceans went. Grey seals were much more obliging. Again our skipper managed to get close enough for us to see some hauled up on the rocks, but not too close to frighten them.

At first we thought it was just adults, but in the second photo from a slightly different angle, you can see a seal pup at the back of the group. I was so thrilled; I’ve seen seals many times (even sieved seal poop for a living for a while – that’s a whole other story), but never seen a young one like this!

But the mammalian star of the show for me had to be a surprise we found on Tresco. I say surprise, but obviously the locals knew they were there as they’d been deliberately introduced. Red Squirrels! We saw a sign saying there were red squirrels as soon as we entered Tresco gardens, but I thought we’d be lucky just to get a glimpse. But then we turned around and there was a beautiful squirrel sitting right there, enjoying some nuts. I was fumbling with my camera , sure it would disappear, but no it was clearly unfazed by our presence and carried on snacking. The best views I’ve ever had of a red squirrel.

We saw several more as we enjoyed the gardens, although none as close as that first one. It must be an ideal habitat for them and they seemed to be doing really well.

So that’s my round-up of the wildlife we saw on the Isles of Scilly. It really is a fantastic place to visit, although I’m tempted to say “no it’s dreadful” to stop loads of people going and spoiling it! The isolation, the warm climate (warmer than most of the UK at least) and beautiful scenery make the islands the best wildlife destination I’ve been to in Britain and I can’t wait to go back.

Scilly Isles – Annet and St Agnes

/ nrowberry / 2 Comments

So this is the final blog post from our trip to the Scilly Isles – this time visiting both Annet and St Agnes. In terms of wildlife, this is maybe saving the best until last – that is if you like puffins! If you’re not into puffins, maybe better to stop reading now. There are a lot of photos in this post, but it could have been worse. We took over 600 that day alone, but I’ve managed to whittle them down to under 20! I didn’t really have the right lens (or skill) for taking relatively distant shots of puffins, but here are my best efforts.

This was a two island trip – we spent an hour or so boating around Annet before being dropped off on St Agnes to be picked up again a few hours later. The whole island of Annet is a bird sanctuary and an important breeding ground for seabirds. Because of this we were not allowed to land on Annet, so we could only view the birds from the boat. This wasn’t a problem, as in many ways, watching the birds from the boat was the best way to see them.

As befits a bird reserve, there were birds everywhere. One of the prettiest species we saw was the Common Tern. When you see them flying it’s fairly obvious why they are also sometimes known as the Sea Swallow.

We’d had drama on a previous boat trip when a gull killed a cormorant. This time we saw a gull meet its match with a crow. I don’t know if the gull was trying to catch the crow or the crow was mobbing the gull, but in the end they both gave up and flew off.

Of course the birds we all really wanted to see were the puffins. We’d feared we might be too late in the season, as they move away from the coast after breeding and head out to sea. But we were in luck and we saw puffins – loads of them! I got a bit carried away taking photographs, but who could resist with puffins all around.

At first we saw them near their burrows on the low cliffs of Annet.

Seeing them by their burrows was great, but then they started flying and it just got better and better.  They flew all around the boat, up to a dozen at any one time. When trying to take a photo you realise just how small and how fast they really are – it’s not easy focussing from a bobbing boat, but take enough photos and at least some turn out OK!

 

 

 

Like a lot of iconic wildlife, when you see them close up they can seem almost too good to be true – but they are absolutely beautiful birds and it was a dream come true to see them like this.

After flying around for a bit they started to land on the water. So again after many, many fuzzy attempts, here are a few of the best ones of them bobbing about.

Puffins rely extensively on sandeels for much of their diet and one of the classic images of them is with a mouthful of fish. At first I thought we’d not got a photo of this, but after a second trawl through our pics, I found I’d got one – I was very happy to get a picture of a puffin with his lunch.

After watching them fly and swim around for a bit, our guide spotted some on a rocky outcrop and we managed to get close enough (without disturbing them) to get some more photos.

We could happily have spent the whole day watching the puffins, but our boat eventually took us on to St Agnes. Not that this was a bad thing either, because St Agnes was lovely too. The Turks Head pub was just as I remembered it from childhood (I started young!) and we had an excellent lunch there sitting out by the sea. The pub is in the perfect location, just a few yards from the quay.

As with all the islands, there are beautiful views in all directions.

After an excellent pub lunch, we took a stroll across the sandbar to Gugh island, which is only accessible on foot at low tide. I’ve always fancied staying on an island like that, where you are completely cut off when the tide comes in. There weren’t many houses on Gugh, but plenty of wildlife.

We headed back to St Agnes (thankfully we’d judged the tide OK and not got cut off) and continued round the island. We found a lovely café (Coastguard Café) with yet more amazing views and equally good cream teas. We had one very delightful teatime companion – a particularly inquisitive (i.e. greedy) thrush. I think it was a Song Thrush. We saw loads of thrushes on the Scilly Isles – way more than we ever see at home, there must be something about the islands that agrees with them (besides the scones).

So that’s it for our trip to the Scilly Isles. 1 week, 5 boat trips, half a dozen pubs, loads of seals, butterflies, birds and beaches and 1 beautiful wasp. And it still felt like we’d only scratched the surface of what there was to see and do. I know I’m probably sounding like an advert for the Scillies, but I can’t recommend the islands enough. If you are into wildlife like us, then they are heaven, but even if you’re not so nature obsessed, the stunning scenery, sunny weather and friendly people still make them a great place to visit. We are already looking forward to going back.

The final photo from our whole Scilly Isles trip has to be this little ornamental duck, which was sitting on the wall outside our accommodation. Although it looks nothing like a real bird, every time we walked passed it, we all did a double take. Maybe we’ve spent too long looking for wildlife everywhere, or maybe we just want to believe there is wildlife everywhere. Either way, I grew quite fond of this Iittle duck and it will always remind me of a very happy holiday.