The Farne Islands, Northumberland

“There is something really special about colonies of breeding seabirds and no matter how many times one sees them on film there’s nothing like actually being there to experience firsthand the wonderful smell and the noise.”  That’s what we wrote five years ago (!) when we visited Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve in Yorkshire.

Guillemots

Ever since then it has been our intention to visit another seabird colony with Skomer Island and the Farne Islands at the top of our list.  However, crossing to offshore islands to see breeding seabirds isn’t entirely straightforward, particularly if your starting point is in Portugal!  We needed to find an opportunity during what is always a busy time of the year and then we needed some settled weather for the boat crossing.

Atlantic Puffins - very cute!

Finally, this year, we made it.  After just a few days back in the UK we headed north to Northumberland and the Farnes.  Located just off the coast near Bamburgh, the Farnes are well-known as the home of thousands of breeding seabirds and were featured recently on the BBC Springwatch programme, so they need little introduction from us.

Arctic Tern

We spent just three days in Northumberland visiting Holy Island as well as the Farnes.  Our trip to the Farnes was on a boat from Seahouses operated by Billy Shiel.  We landed on Staple Island and on Inner Farne and had a little over two hours on each.

Bamburgh Castle - we stayed nearby

Seahouses harbour

Puffins (about 40,000 pairs) and Arctic Terns (about 2,000 pairs) are probably the main attractions but in recent years there has been a big increase in the number of Guillemots with more than 50,000 individuals counted.  What a nightmare it must be counting that lot - we have difficulty counting just two or three thousand birds at Castro Marim!  In all, about two dozen species nest on the islands, a total that includes several passerines.

Grey Seal - one of the many hundreds

Guillemot - numbers have increased dramatically in recent years

Northern Fulmar - Found only on St Kilda until the 1900s, now 500,000 pairs nest around the British coast

European Shag - the name apparently means 'tufted'

Rock Pipit feeding young

Common Shelduck - just a pair or two breed

Razorbill - one of the world's less numerous auk species

Settled weather and a healthy supply of food are the two important factors that lead to breeding success and from all the signs the auks were doing well.  All three species were bringing in plenty of their staple diet of sandeels.  Arctic Terns, on the other hand, were having a more difficult time finding food, we were told.  What the eventual outcome of the season will be only time will tell.

Atlantic Puffin with sandeels

Arctic Tern - the longest of long-distance migrants

Eider Duck - about 600 pairs breed

Black-legged Kittiwake - said to be the world's most numerous gull species

Red Squirrel - not on the islands but not far from Bamburgh

Being in such close proximity to so many birds (and hundreds of Grey Seals) was a memorable experience and we won’t want to leave it another five years before we enjoy again that distinctive smell and the constant calling of Kittiwakes.

More seabirding

If anything, this morning's pelagic trip was even better than the one I reported on earlier in the week.  Again it was from Fuseta, it was the same boat and we were out in the same area of ocean for the same amount of time and again the sea was flat calm.  However, today there were even more species seen than there were on Tuesday and the sun shone throughout making for some generally more pleasing photographs.

As well as numerous Northern Gannets and Cory's Shearwaters, the bird list included Great Shearwater, Balearic Shearwater, Great Skua, Pomarine Skua, Arctic Skua, Common Tern, Black Tern, Sabine's Gull, Audouin's Gull, Little Gull and Black-legged Kittiwake, European Storm-petrel and Wilson's Storm-petrel.

We saw fewer European Storm-petrels than on Tuesday but most of the others appeared in increased numbers and there were three additional species with the Kittiwake in particular being somewhat unexpected.

Tuesday was a 7-gull day.  Well, with Mediterranean and Slender-billed seen in Tavira on the way home, today was a 9-gull day.  Surely that must be an Algarve record!

Bempton Cliffs

We see Northern Gannets at all times of the year off the Algarve coast but largest numbers are in October and November when thousands, including many juveniles, pass by Cabo de São Vicente. Most are heading south to spend the winter off the coast of West Africa but some will opt instead for the Mediterranean. Generally it is the young birds that travel furthest and some of the longest distance ringing recoveries are of British bred birds found dead in their first winters (in Guinea Bissau, Israel and Turkey).


British breeding birds, (219,000 nests were counted in the last full survey), represent more than half of the world population. Mostly they favour offshore islands but an exception is the RSPB reserve at Bempton in Yorkshire where several thousand of them nest on cliffs on the mainland.



It was to Bempton that we took ourselves for our first day’s birding after arriving back in England but this wasn’t just to see Gannets. There is something really special about colonies of breeding seabirds and no matter how many times one sees them on film there’s nothing like actually being there to experience first hand the wonderful smell and the noise. It's something we can't do in the Algarve. Also, have you noticed how film makers always seem to concentrate on the ‘sexy’ birds like Puffins, Razorbills and Guillemots without ever mentioning that their soundtrack is largely being provided by Kittiwakes! That 'kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake' call is an essential part of the seabird colony experience and it was good to see so many juvenile Kittiwakes on the cliffs.


We were too late in the season to see many auks but there were a few Puffins and the odd Guillemot or two remaining. It was also nice to see Fulmars again and we were delighted to find Tree Sparrows along the clifftop trail, another bird we haven't seen for quite some time.

On our way home we stopped off at another RSPB reserve at Blacktoft Sands on the south side of the Humber Estuary. Here we enjoyed a real ‘tringa-fest’ - Greenshanks, Common & Spotted Redshanks, Green Sandpipers and a Marsh Sandpiper, some of our favourite birds. It was also good to see what most people still seem to refer to as Bearded Tits (rather than Bearded Reedlings), a species that hasn’t yet found its way to Portugal and so another treat for us!