Wildlife artist Robert Fuller is busily preparing for his new art exhibition, but he still finds time to take a break from the easel to go and watch the puffin action in June.
The nation's favourite seabird is undoubtedly the puffin. It is easy to see why when you consider its smart black and white plumage and comical manner. But what really sets it apart from other seabirds is its bright colours.
It has an exquisite striped bill with shades of blue, grey, red, orange, yellow and cream. Its dark eye is perfectly set off with co-ordinated red and blue eyeliner and its orange legs and feet are so bright that they reflect a tango glow onto the puffin's white belly. These birds really are asking to be painted.
Our nearest puffin colony is at Bempton Cliffs. From these spectacular chalk sea cliffs it's possible to watch their arrival in late April. First small dots appear on the horizon. These rapidly increase in size, then small whirring wings and a splash of colour become apparent – that's when you know that the puffins are back.
Once you've spotted one, you then see another and another. They gather up into a raft of puffins on the water, before braving it onto the cliffs. Remember these birds have been at sea for seven months and can be nervous at first.
Puffins return to our shores in full breeding plumage and so we think of them as always being in technicolor. But in winter, whilst away at sea, they undergo a dramatic dressing down and become unrecognisable with grey faces, dull bills and insipid yellow legs. In fact, their appearance is so different that they were thought to be a different species in the 1800s.
Some puffins have already done much of their courtship at sea and get straight down to spring cleaning or digging a burrow, using their beaks as a pickaxe and their feet as shovels.
Others still need to find a mate and somewhere to nest. Competition can be fierce and fights break out for burrow ownership. Their beaks can lock and they use their wings as boxing gloves.
By May, things have quietened down as each puffin pair incubates a single egg. But in June, when you start to see adults with beaks full of sand eels you know that the first chicks have hatched, and the colony starts to get busy again.
Puffins seem to come and go from the colony in swathes. This is for good reason. Being one of the smallest seabirds they are very vulnerable to attacks. They fly in swathes, hoping to bamboozle their worst enemy, the greater black backed gull. With a six foot wing span, this gull can snatch puffins on the wing.
Luckily for our local puffins, black backs don't breed at Bempton. Our puffins only have to contend with herring gulls. These gulls are unable to take on a full grown puffin, but will harass one into dropping its hard earned catch.
Puffins have been recorded carrying over 60 sand eels at once. They catch fish underwater using their small wings as flippers to propel them. Their beak is specially adapted to carry a lot of fish at one time. It has backward facing spines and the puffin uses it to trap fish in between its top bill and spiny tongue, leaving the lower bill free to catch more – ingenious!
Puffins certainly have the edge over both of its closest relatives. The razorbill can only hold a few fish in its beak at a time and the guillemot can only catch one fish at a time, before it has to fly back to feed its chicks.
You can see puffins at their colonies from late April to August, but June and July are the best months to see them as at this time they are busy feeding their single chick.
The puffins at RSPB Bempton Cliffs tend to nest in crevices in the cliffs which they share with some 200,000 seabirds, including the largest mainland gannet colony in the UK . (see www.rspb.org.uk )
Alternatively three hour long ‘Puffin Cruises' depart every Saturday and Sunday from Bridlington Pier from now until 11 th July. You can book your place by telephone on 01262 850959.
Further north, off the coast of Northumberland , are the Farne Islands where you can get a really close look at the 40,000 puffins nesting there.
The Farnes are equally famous for one of the largest grey seal colonies in Europe . And they are home to 20 other sea bird species, including turns, gulls, guillemots, cormorants, shags and eider ducks. (See www.farne-islands.com )
Robert Fuller is holding an exhibition of his wildlife paintings on 13-28 th June at Fotherdale Farm, Thixendale. Opening times 11am -4.30pm . See www.robertefuller.com for details
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Wildlife Diary -
