Farne Islands – Puffin & Angels Photo Workshop

Believe me, once you see one you are hooked ! Puffins are the most adorable little birds, they are about the size of a duck and look somewhat like a penguin with a big round orange beak. They are cute just sitting there, truly amazing when in flight, and real funny when they land, putting out big orange feet, landing and half falling down, like they haven’t quite mastered the act of a proper landing yet.

We took a 4 day trip to the Farne Islands in Northumberland. Starting point was the small coastal town of Seahouses, about an hours drive north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The drive there by the coastal route was already a pleasure cruise in which we included a short photo stop at St.Mary’s Lighthouse.

The next morning we met at the harbour and took the all day birdwatch tour with Billy Shiel. After some cruising amongst the Outer Farne Islands where we already got some good views of Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Fulmar, Shag, Terns, Puffins and Seals we finally landed on Staple Island. We want puffins ! Well, no worries, they were there, lots of them and lots of other birds too. Admittedly I am still no birder, but thousands of puffins are about to change my mind forever !

There are puffins everywhere, some are right beside the steps when we come up, lots are in the grass along the path to the other side of the island. Puffins and most other birds in raw numbers are found on the rocks on the other side, there is something for everybodies likes and even though there are quite a few boats the people spread out and it is not too crowded. There are even more puffins flying in over our heads, at times maybe just 1m over our heads and at amazing speed, of course always coming from the direction you were not looking.

The thing is if you want a puffin in flight, preferably coming in from the ocean with the little eels in its mouth, you have to first find a good spot, meaning somewhere where you see them coming in. They are small but incredibly fast ! Focus on one, follow it and as it gets closer and within “shooting range”, focus and just keep pressing the shutter button set a high speed continuous.  Even then you will have to delete most, but when with time when you get “the hang of it”, it really is good fun…let’s do one more, just one more ! The two hours went much too fast. A short boat trip further we get to Inner Farne Island, believe it or not, this is a British island, even though today, on this very lovely sunny day, it did almost look like the Caribbean !

As we land a cloud of Terns rises from the island. The silly animals make their nests right beside, sometimes almost on the boardwalk, and we are to walk only on that boardwalk. They defend their nests and pick on every head that passes by. We were warned and all wear a cap or hat of some sort, believe me you need one ! Some do their job rather fierce and the sharp pecks really hurt ! Once past the first field there are more puffins than terns and our heads are safe once more.

This island is definitely better for tern photography, where as Staple is better for the puffins. The attacking terns are a great photo motive and we keep trying till our time is up and we return to the mainland.

The next day we did some landscape photography at Bamburgh Castle and on Holy Island, which was nice too but we are all looking forward to tomorrows boat trip to the puffins, they are just the cutest photo motives ever !

In the evening we do return for a sunset shoot, the one sunset possibility we had, so we had to make the most of it. The weather forecast for tomorrow is not so good.

As we meet at the harbour once again the sun is already disappearing. This time we board the Serenity together with the other workshop participants and our pro-photographer Kaleel Zibe. We do just about the same tour, unfortunately no more blue and green backgrouds today, we’ll have to do with grey and white and are happy the rain stays away.

 

The experience from two days ago, and Kaleel’s tips help us to get many more focussed flying puffin pics today, the terns actually look better in the white background. Kaleel tells us to use the flash which slows down the shutter speed, it makes the wing motion all blurry and really does make them look like angels.

Even as the rain sets in we can’t get enough, just one more, just one more, I see one coming straight at me with eels in the mouth, must try that one… we have to go, the light is low,the boat will leave, we’ll just have to come back and do it again some day !

Farne Islands are really a great place to go, if you are a bird lover or a bird photographer, or if you are trying to become either one … !

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Copyright text and photo by Astrid & Jürg Blümel for bluemelphoto.ch