![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Cruises with puffins
Jul. 29th, 2012 04:18 pmEarly this year, and probably in the context of a puffin-themed gift or card, because she is very good at finding those, Gail remarked that 2012 was to be the year in which she finally got to see a real live puffin. I regard this as an entirely reasonable ambition, and filed it away for future action - and yesterday, since D. was staying with us in order to visit his mother in Amble, we all went for a puffin cruise round Coquet Island.
It's the very end of the season, and there were not as many puffins to be seen as there would have been even a week earlier. They had, according to the boatman, been very numerous this year, and the food had been plentiful, which is good news not to be taken for granted, and there were still sizeable groups bobbing about on the waves, or whizzing past us like winged bullets - "like Cornish pasties with wings," said Gail, and since I can't picture that, I can't really dispute it. (Roger has a splendid photo of flying puffins, but because it freezes the motion, it doesn't convey the impression of combined effort and speed which is charateristic of their flight.)
There were also terns (since we didn't land on the island, they didn't feel the need to attack), though not the rare roseate tern for which Coquet Island is famous, and kittiwakes, and just once we looked up to see close above us, its silhouette ringed in brightness, a gannet.
There's a lighthouse on the island, crenellated like a castle (allegedly because the island belongs to the Duke of Northumberland, and he wanted a castle) but built on the base of a monastery (the unpainted masonry of the lower part of the tower is a remnant of the monastic buildings), yet another of the islands to which Saint Cuthbert used to retreat.
Finally, as we came round to the eastern side of the island, we had a good view of the grey seals which live there all year round - and they sat up and had a good look back at us.
All this and a car boot sale at Amble Harbour made for a very happy day out. I'd gladly do it again next year - and earlier in the season.
It's the very end of the season, and there were not as many puffins to be seen as there would have been even a week earlier. They had, according to the boatman, been very numerous this year, and the food had been plentiful, which is good news not to be taken for granted, and there were still sizeable groups bobbing about on the waves, or whizzing past us like winged bullets - "like Cornish pasties with wings," said Gail, and since I can't picture that, I can't really dispute it. (Roger has a splendid photo of flying puffins, but because it freezes the motion, it doesn't convey the impression of combined effort and speed which is charateristic of their flight.)
There were also terns (since we didn't land on the island, they didn't feel the need to attack), though not the rare roseate tern for which Coquet Island is famous, and kittiwakes, and just once we looked up to see close above us, its silhouette ringed in brightness, a gannet.
There's a lighthouse on the island, crenellated like a castle (allegedly because the island belongs to the Duke of Northumberland, and he wanted a castle) but built on the base of a monastery (the unpainted masonry of the lower part of the tower is a remnant of the monastic buildings), yet another of the islands to which Saint Cuthbert used to retreat.
Finally, as we came round to the eastern side of the island, we had a good view of the grey seals which live there all year round - and they sat up and had a good look back at us.
All this and a car boot sale at Amble Harbour made for a very happy day out. I'd gladly do it again next year - and earlier in the season.
