Puffin gathering nesting material

Lunga Island, Isle of Mull, Scotland

Description

It was an unusually warm and sunny day on Lunga Island, off Mull.  This image was taken on the longer trip provided by the boat company which allows photographers a few hours more on the Island when the rest of the tourists depart.

You can get very close to the puffins if you wait a respectful distance from their burrows, you can be rewarded with some lovely close encounters.  A puffins burrow is about the length of your arm so this is the guide as to how far back you should be standing away from their burrows, otherwise the danger is if you stray too close and because their burrows are under ground they could collapse trapping the puffins offspring.

There had been recent heavy rain and as this was nearer to the end of June you do not expect to see them nest building and expect to see them coming in with mouthful of sandeels to feed their chicks. As I was not hearing many pufflings calling from their burrows I could only assume a lot of them sadly drowned and the adults were going to try breed again.