A good Shetland month --- mostly spent at the south end of the Shetland Mainland hanging out with the Sumburgh Head puffins. So I thought this report should be an All Puffin Special Issue.
Reporting Days: 30
Location: Shetland
Distance Walked: 300 km
Distance Driven: 800 km
Distance Trained: 0 km (there are no trains on Shetland)
Puffins Photographed: Most of Them
June is a splendid time to spend at a puffin colony.
At the start of the month the breeding adults are busy with putting the final touch to their nests and then sitting on their eggs, by mid-June the eggs have hatched, which means that the adults are busy bringing sand eels back to the wee pufflings (and you just might get a first glimpse of them).
Around mid-June we also get the puffin 'non-breeders' returning to the cliffs where they were born. These birds are typically three years old (teenagers in puffin years), and they get up to all sorts of mischief hanging about around the 'grown-up' puffins.
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| Incoming - there's always room for one more puffin |
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| Bringing home the sand eels - a sign that pufflings have hatched |
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| Synchronise your Puffins |
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| On the wall. This year we've seen lots of puffins on the Sumburgh walls |
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| Plotting Puffins |
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| Keep on preening |
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| Puffins are a lot smaller than razorbills |
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| Another wall, another puffin |
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| Whispers |
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| More whispers |
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| All on the wall |
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| Wall walker |
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| Waiting outside the nest |
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| First glimpse of 2025 puffling at Sumburgh Head (25 June) |
And next month? - you can expect to see razorbills and guillemots, and I might just find space for more puffin pictures.
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