Puffin again, for Lisa

I went back to the cliffs this week, and managed to capture a few more puffin pics. I like this one as it seems to be smiling my direction.

Puffin around

I saw this little guy at the end of a long summer day of taking photos, and the light was getting really poor.
He was positioned right in the deepest of the shadows created by the cliffs, and trying to get pictures was actually getting quite dangerous. I assume he's a guy - you really need to see a pair together to know them apart as the female is a little bit smaller. You can see it was the height of summer because of the glorious colour of the beak - they pale and go grey by winter. Apparently they shed part of the beak, and I meant to go back to see if I could find a piece, but we have had unusually windy weather since then, making it unwise to wander round those particular clifftops.


I was overjoyed to see him. I think he's the first live puffin I have ever seen, and the colours are incredible. It almost seems that they have to be in make-up for the markings to be so perfect. The rest of the sightings that day had been seals, gulls, cormorants and razorbills, so the splash of colour was a welcome sight.