A year in the Life of a Puffin

I have spent the last few years documenting the behaviour of puffins on Skomer Island and have just written an article. I have found that an understanding of your subject really pays off when you are capturing images.

The puffin is one of the must see birds for many people in the UK but they can only be seen when they return to land during the breeding season. This means a special boat trip to one of the few accessible colonies such as Skomer off south-west Wales, the Farne Islands off Northumberland, the Treshnish Islands off Mull or the Isle of May or Craigleith in the Firth of Forth.
The most impressive feature is the large bill which has a bright orange or red outer part separated by a pale ridge from an inner bluish area. A colourful yellow wrinkled rosette of swollen skin makes the join at the corner of the mouth. The legs and webbed feet also stand out with their bright orange colouration. These distinctive breeding plumage features look as though the bird has just been freshly painted at the beginning of the breeding season. This image is of a bird that has just returned to Skomer in April.

It is only 6 weeks until the Dale Princess starts taking visitors to Skomer again!