Mingulay, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.  Day 16 , 14th July.

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On Mingulay I also got the opportunity to photograph puffins.  Most photographs of puffins you will see show them sitting on the ground.  In some places they will come quite close to you.  Photographing them in the air is much harder because they are small and surprisingly quick.

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I was also expecting to see them in Iceland but they had gone by the time I go there.  It all depends on their seasonal supply of sand eels.

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Not everything is easy in a puffin’s life.  This is a skua, a predator.

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These are Atlantic Puffins.  There are also two other species of puffin in the Pacific, as well as a closely related species the Rhinoceros Auklet.  They are also related to the extinct Giant Auk.

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Their nesting area is very close to the old village.  They would definitely have been a food source for the islanders, both them and their eggs, though perhaps they chose a more remote location when the villagers were still there.

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Here they nest in burrows in the ground, which requires a remote island, free I would think of feral cats.  In other places they may nest in cliffs.

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