Phil Hasell's nature

Sunday, 8 July 2012

Grey seals

There were large numbers of these either hauled out on the Farne islands rocks or watching us as they swam in to investigate us.

The top two pictures are of arctic terns, of which there are large numbers nesting on Inner farne, some right next to the walkways. as can be seen from the second picture, they can be very aggressive when any person, animal or bird strays too close to their nest and the culprit is attacked with vigour, a hat is required to prevent being pecked on the head, the gentleman in this picture had been the victim of such an attack but then the bird had changed its annoyance to another tern that was too close to its air space. Pictures three and four are of Sandwich terns ferrying food to their chicks.

Guillemots

As can be seen in picture one, there was no shortage of common guillemots on the Farnes, the fourth picture is of the bridled variety we also saw there.

Thursday, 5 July 2012

Razorbill

I had not seen a razorbill with a mouthfull of fish before so I was very pleased with this picture, the second shot shows the powerfull looking beak on this bird, taking a rest on it's ledge.

Shag

Smaller than the cormorant, I think the shag is a much smarter bird, these ones on the Farne islands were, like all the other birds there, amazingly confiding, unconcerned by people walking up to within a few feet. The first picture is of a youngster, almost ready to leave the nest, others were still on eggs surprisingly, unless they had lost earlier broods to the gulls.

Lesser black backed gull

This handsome looking gull is one of the 'pirates' that rob the puffins of their catches and are not averse to taking a chick too, I think this is a LBB chick pictured but, whilst watching it, the parents did not return so I'm unsure

Puffins

Les and I had a day on the Farne islands and these are the first birds most photographers go to see, charismatic, colourful and very endearing. we watched them tirelessly running the gauntlet of predatory gulls to disappear into their burrows to feed the waiting chicks.