Wednesday 5th August comments:
WHAT a day – the weather was perfect; the sea was flat and large numbers of visitors enjoyed the islands in all their glory, minus a few thousand seabirds… We still have a few Puffins lingering but they are becoming more and more elusive (two chicks fledged last night).
Away from all the visitor and wildlife aspects of the Farnes, we’ve been improving the accommodation on the islands over the past year or two. The next step in this progression has been the improvement of the fire place in the Pele Tower on Inner Farne to allow a new wood burning stove to be installed. As part of that work, the old chimney works were removed and it was then we made a grizzly discovery…
The building team discovered a well preserved, mummified Puffin complete with wing feathers and skeleton. It certainly was a sad end for the bird, as at some stage in history the bird had fallen down the chimney and become trapped. How old and how long it has been there is anyones guess, but where looking at years rather than months.
Highlights: Common Scoter 13N, Manx Shearwater 6N, Arctic Skua 3 lingering, Green Sandpiper 3 (1 on Brownsman and 2 on Inner Farne), Whimbrel 8, Bar-tailed Godwit 2, Knot 12, Golden Plover 200, Dunlin 8, Swallow 12, Sedge Warbler 1 and Willow Warbler 4.
Butterflies: An excellent day with huge numbers of all common butterflies along with 20+ Peacocks and 10+ Painted Ladies.
1 comment:
Hi David and all on the Farnes hope you made your journey back okay David and I was sorry to miss you . I have never been so wet in all my life !!!!!!!!!!!! never mind it was worth it just to get a few pics as it seems I have lost all the ones I took before due to corrupt memory stick . It seems I am fated with my trips to the Farnes better luck maybe next year , I am now totally in love with the place and cant wait to come back .
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