An Unexpected Blog: Farne Island

Back in July Stuart and I took a week off work and headed to see his family in Durham. After a lifetime living in Milton Keynes his parents decided it was time to move and see what the North of England had to offer. Now, growing up on the Isle of Wight and living all my adult live in London, I can safely be described as a Southerner through and through. I'm afraid to say my view of 'Up North' was very much centered around films like 'Brassed Off' and 'Billy Elliot'. I kind of had the joking mindset that 'it ain't half grim up North'. Oh my goodness, I was so wrong. We went out each day to seek out new locations and each of them were more beautiful and scenic than the first.

One of my favourite places was Farne Island. We drove for about an hour and a half from Stuart's parents house, to Seahouses. Seahouses is small seaside town where you can catch boats to National Trust protected islands. Farne Island is famous for its bird colonies, and most excitingly puffins! You buy a ticket for a boat tour, there's lots of options available from the harbour, and then head out to sea!

Our tour took us sailing past a range of small islands first so we could watch the birds flying to and from the islands, and see them nesting on the side of the rocks. We even got to wave hello to quite a few seals who were laying around, wishing the sun would come out!

As we got closer to Farne Island we were treated to hundred of puffins flying above us and hanging out in the sea.

Then it was time for the most exciting part of the day - we were allowed to land on Farne Island to explore the place on foot. I can't explain how happy this made me. Years ago Stuart and I went to Pembrokeshire in Wales to visit Skomer Island. Like Farne Island, Skomer is famous for its puffin colonies. At the time I was so excited that we would be able to walk on the island and see the puffins nesting, however (this was before we had a car) by the time we had got to the harbour near Skomer we were told all the tickets for visiting the island were sold out. To top this off we had got the earliest bus that ran to Skomer so I felt it was ridiculously unfair they didn't put a few tickets to one side for people who had to get the bus - it wasn't even a standard local bus, it was one run by the people who issue the tickets to the island. Anyway that was a long time ago, and I'm (almost) over it now, honest! Farne Island, however, allows people on the island throughout the day, and again our National Trust membership came in handy as normally there is an additional charge to visit the island, on top of the boat charge - but not for members!

The first birds that greeted us as we stepped on the island were the arctic terns. They nest on the ground and their chicks were all over the island, just sat there hoping not to be stepped on (don't worry, they were all behind the pathway with flags to mark any that were a little too close to the path). The way the parents protect the chicks is to scream at you, and if you look like you're getting too close they will dive bomb you! Luckily Stuart's mum had already warned us about this so we made sure we wore hats and didn't get too close. The chicks were pretty cute though!

Once we had got safely past the terns we could see where the puffins nest. So prepare yourself for many many puffin photos!

There are so man puffins wandering around on the grass and surrounding cliffs that I decided to try and challenge myself to get a clear picture of a flying puffin. This is harder than it sounds because there are so many of them in the air and they fly past really quickly. Seriously for such small, weird looking birds they've got some speed!

I won't bore you with the hundreds of blurred photos I ended up with but here are the only two that I managed to take which are just about passable!

Also on the island are a range of gulls and guilmots. When we were on the island it was peak season for chicks, so we were treated to a range of baby birds all screaming and clambering for food!

The real stars of the show, for me, were the puffins. I don't know why I like them so much. They've got these sad looking eyes and are fascinating to watch as they hop across the grass. They have to be the cutest birds I've ever seen. This trip certainly made up for my missed trip on Skomer in Wales all those years ago.

Then, before we knew it, it was time for us to say goodbye to the locals and head back onto the boat and back to Seahouses for fish and chips by the sea.