All or puffin

Awake early to catch a ferry to the island of Westray, I blearily scanned our bookshelves for some favourite words to read on the boat. My hand settled upon The Screaming Sky, Charles Foster's intensely personal view of the lives of Swifts. Perhaps it was because I haven't seen a Swift for over three years, or maybe it's that I am running out of time to see one this year too, as the birds will soon be heading back to Africa.

The journey passed with the swiftness of soaring sentences and sojourns across Sahel and sea. Despite the continued decline in the Swift population, a situation laid firmly at humanity's door, I do enjoy reading this book.

Following the installation of a replacement dish and a guided tour of my host's wildlife garden, my thoughts turned to another bird who will shortly be leaving our shores at the end of its breeding season, the Puffin. I drove to the small car park by the ruined cornmill beside the bay of Rack Wick, finding space despite the preponderance of mobile homes which had accompanied me on the ferry. You may recall that I helped Megan recce this walk in early Spring before she launched her Ultimate Puffin Experience for 2026, so for the last three months I have been hearing all about Fratercula arctica* and its breeding season.

Back in the present, a blustery rain squall had just bustled through, so I took advantage of the sunshine in its lee and wandered along a boardwalk towards the rock stack of Castle o' Burrian. By the path, Puffins were living their best lives, some returning from fishing trips at sea with beakfuls of sand eels for their chicks, others sat about on the cliff, passing the time of day with their neighbours.

Oh, how I wish that this photo had been in focus

A view of the top of the Castle

For a while, despite the damp grass, I sat on the clifftop opposite the rock stack, just taking in the scene and enjoying the company of Puffins. To my right, the closest birds were sat outside their burrows, only looking more alert when someone walked by on the path above. Eventually, I noticed something different. A puffling had emerged from a burrow to be fed by one of its parents. It was a lovely moment and yet more special as this was the first puffling I had ever seen.

* In one of those oddments of taxonomic nomenclature, the Puffin is not named Puffinus puffinus, that label belongs to the Manx Shearwater.