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Photographing Puffins

The Treshnish Islands Scotland

After a recent trip to Bempton cliffs and being slightly disappointed with only seeing a few puffins, I decided to head up to Scotland to the Treshnish Isles and the Isle of Lunga.

Somewhere where I would almost be guaranteed to photograph and see plenty of puffins and other sea birds.

So I jumped into the car, and headed north, as it happened the weather was absolutely perfect clear blue skies not too windy with a nice warm sea breeze, and the forecast was to remain this way at least for the next few days.

I arrived in Oban around 6pm, grabbed an evening meal, and retired for the evening as I had an early start with a boarding time at 7:00 AM and a 1 1/2 hours coach ride to Fionnphort at the far end of the isle of Mull.

So I woke up at 6:00 a.m. To clear blue skies and calm seeds ready to board the ferry to Mull, it was a pleasant journey across to Mull, and unfortunately, no wildlife to speak of just a few gannets and seagulls.

Once I arrived in Mull he was straight on to the coach for our drive to Fionnphort, where we would board the boat that would take us to the Isle of Lunga

Thoughts were going through my mind of how difficult this would be and could I achieve what I wanted to achieve in such a short period of time, focusing on the job in hand I set off up the hill to start photographing the puffins, to my amazement there were hundreds of them literally within a few meters of our feet we've been being able to lie down get low to the ground and photograph these wonderful puffins flying to and fro from the Cliff edge and entering their Burrows below, a spectacle I had not imagined, I have seen a few pictures online of how close people can be to the puffins but this was incredible this was just another level I was in awe.

Having two cameras in my hand one with the Canon R7 and the Canon R5 with a 70 to 200mm F 2.8 lens, and on the other a 100 to 500 F 4.5 lens, I was armed and ready to focus on the puffin's guillemots,  gannets Fulmars flying around my head, there were so many birds flying around I did not know where to look, it was amazing, and just like that, the time was up,  had I achieved what  I set out to do? , did I have enough photos? Have I got enough video? all these thoughts are rushing through my head whilst being overwhelmed by the entire experience.

All I could think about was booking my next trip to this amazing place.

After a short walk, I boarded the boat to the Isle of Staffa where we were off to see Fignals Cave, but  I decided that I would head up to the top of Staffa, and sit alone at the top,  looking out across the islands taking it all in and enjoying the peace and quiet, whilst watching the puffins.

We soon departed the Isle of Staffa and headed to the Isle of Iona where we could get refreshments a toilet break and a nice hot cup of coffee time to absorb and take in everything we had experienced in the morning before boarding the ferry back to urban and a 5 1/2 hour drive home.

Exhausted tired and excited by what I had seen rushed through my head as I drove home.