Puffin watching
| 26 |
| Jun |
| 2010 |
We don't have puffins on Ramsey Island courtesy of rats which until recently inhabited the island. The RSPB managed to get rid of the rats and are hoping to reintroduce puffins to Ramsey. Ramsey is home to many shearwaters who live in burrows which would be suitable for puffins, often sharing the area with rabbits who are rather useful neighbours since they provide a degree of protection.
The RSPB has placed decoy puffins in strategic places on Ramsey to try to encourage puffins to think of the island as a desirable residence. Bizarre though it may sound we are seeing more puffins around Ramsey than we did years ago (I've been going around Ramsey for 25 years and Tim for 30 so we have a reasonably good idea of recent bird activity).
We're also seeing healthy numbers of puffins on the North Bishop island, which is a short hop from Ramsey island. We've had some lovely sightings this week and even had a puffin flying alongside us as we returned from the North Bishop. We sometimes get guillemots and razorbills flying so close to the boat that we could reach out and touch them. They are impressively quick and will keep up with us for some distance if they feel like it. This week's puffin took the record for speed though - he was faster than we were. Of course I'm basing this on empirical research (ie the evidence of what's before my eyes...) rather than any complex speed monitoring but he was quite something.
