The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
My quest to see a puffin and fulfil a dream
Comical but earnest, doughty, bright-billed and just 11 inches tall… no wonder Judith Woods can’t resist the bird on a wildlife break in Yorkshire
Iwas on the edge of a Yorkshire cliff, surrounded by strangers, peering into a high-powered telescope, gasping and squealing with untrammelled excitement. “Bless, it’s her lifetime’s ambition,” my 21-year-old daughter explained, with all the patronising affection of youth. “Look at her, she is finally seeing her first ever puffin. How cute is that?”
A ripple of applause broke out across our little group, huddled on the white sea cliffs of the gloriously sunny RSPB reserve at Bempton. There was much murmured agreement that yes, this was a terribly special moment.
For me, it was especially so. For years I have missed seeing the annual arrival of Britain’s 580,000 pairs of puffins, which land on our shores to breed from mid-April and leave in August. I was too late on the Isle of Lunga, off the Isle of Mull; too early on the Isles of Scilly. I even travelled to the Faroe Islands after lockdown to see them – but the birdwatching boat was cancelled due to stormy weather.
This year, I was determined to tick these little clowns of the sea off my bucket list. Why? Just look at them.
At once comical and earnest, these little birds – doughty, bright-billed, just 11 inches tall – can live for more than 20 years and mate for life. They nest underground in burrows on islands where there are no mammalian predators; and on those where there are (including the mainland), they cling to the rock face to breed and rear their chicks – which are called pufflings. Yes, really.
I wasn’t the only newbie at Bempton that day. Thanks to Wild Isles, Sir David Attenborough’s epic love letter to the beauty and grandeur of Britain, a new generation of visitors has turned its gaze onto the rich wealth of wildlife here in the UK. And the puffins, shown on screen battling with black-headed gulls trying to mug them of their sandeel catch before they could reach their burrows, made quite the star turn.
But it was the Wild Isles footage of Sir David getting right up close and personal with them on the Farne Islands – off the Northumberland coast, home to some 200,000 seabirds – that was particularly irresistible. An outbreak of avian flu meant that these islands were closed to visitors last year, but fortunately this year it is business as usual.
Bempton, however, is always open, as visitors watch the birds at designated viewing platforms set a safe distance away. Though puffin numbers there are relatively modest – some 500 pairs nest along the Yorkshire coast – there is plenty of other birdlife to keep you entertained when puffins are scarce, including gannets, primeval cormorants and utterly beautiful razorbills.
The more we learnt about each breed, the more impressive each one seemed. “If you see a flying rugby ball, it’s a guillemot,” the RSPB volunteer explained. “If it looks like a flying tennis ball, it’s a puffin.”
I was already filled with delight and adrenaline, but afterwards the puffin effect took full hold. In the gift shop I went slightly crazy (managing to restrict myself to a mug, a fridge magnet and – oh alright then – a Christmas decoration); then I booked tickets for the RSPB boat which leaves from nearby Bridlington in the late afternoons.
With a few hours to kill, we decided to return to our accommodation – the nearby cottages at High Barn – to explore the welcome basket and attempt a brief reprieve from our wildlife high. But then, we discovered the owl cam. Trained on a nesting box in which a pair of barn owls were raising their brood, the camera was set up on an external wall of the cottage, wired to broadcast its footage directly to a dedicated channel on the television. We were soon completely addicted. In future, I am not sure I want to stay anywhere that doesn’t allow me to watch live as tiny dead rodents are torn to shreds and fed to greedy chicks while I drink my morning coffee.
But nature hadn’t finished with us yet. Later, on the boat trip, a pod of eight dolphins, including a calf, joined us in an amazing performance; breaching the waves, spinning, racing and tail-walking for 10 glorious minutes as walkers high on the cliff stopped to watch.
“It’s almost enough to upstage the puffins,” said the awestruck captain. We nodded that it was, indeed, special. But deep down I knew, nothing would ever upstage a circus of puffins.
‘If you see a flying rugby ball, it’s a guillemot.
‘If it looks like a flying tennis ball, it’s a puffin’