Skomer Island Puffins

A few photos from my recent trip to Skomer Island:

The one picture I didn't get was the classic shot of a bird with sandeels in its mouth, as any Puffins landing with fish would disappear hurriedly down their burrows to escape the predatory gulls and to feed their young.

Something to try for on my next visit!

Video of Puffins on Skomer Island

Here's a little footage of the Atlantic Puffins I took on my recent visit to Skomer Island:

I used an Olympus Pen E-PL1 camera, with a 500mm or 70-200mm SLR lens attached via an adapter, plus a homemade wind-muff (a piece of fake fur!) over the external microphone to hopefully cut out wind noise without affecting the sound quality too much.

Razorbills

There's normally a small group of Razorbills on the rocks near the landing stage on Skomer Island. I didn't notice them on my way onto the island, but they were there as I was leaving, and I just had time to fire off a few shots before departing on the last boat back to the mainland:

A couple of flight shots, taken from the boat as it cruised near the island:

Still sorting through my Puffin shots!

Manx Shearwater

These shots were taken on Skomer Island off the coast of Pembrokeshire on Wednesday. 

There are estimated to be about 128,000 of these birds on Skomer, meaning this island, and nearby Skokholm, compromise over half the world population of the species. They usually feed at sea by day, and then come to land at night to visit their burrows. It was therefore quite a surprise to come upon this bird by the side of a path in the early afternoon sunshine:

It shuffled across the footpath in its ungainly manner, and scrambled up onto a rock, posing nicely for the small group of photographers now present:

Not sure if the bird was ill, but it soon went back down into the undergrowth, before flying off towards the sea with no apparent ill-effects.

Strange!