The sea was calm on our boat trip to the Isle of May and we passed by the Bass Rock, famous for its gannet colony. We were able to get really close up to these magnificent birds. Some were sitting on eggs, some like this pair were rubbing beaks together as part of a courtship ritual. This one below had been trying to pick up a prized bit of blue fishing rope for nest material.
When we reached the Isle of May we cruised around the bottom of the cliffs. We were fortunate to see a pair of peregrine falcons.
One was perched right at the very cliff top, the other was tucked into a narrow ledge below.
It’s not just puffins which make the Isle of May their home. Many guillemots nest here too.
And this is a razorbill, perhaps getting ready to dive down for its next meal.
Near to where the boats come in is an arctic tern colony. The Nature Scot rangers had erected bamboo poles and some wire netting to give the arctic tern chicks better protection from predating gulls. We were told a few years ago a short eared owl came on the island for a week and completely decimated the tern chick population, even though it only ate a fraction of what it killed.
The herring gull chicks were very fluffy and quite cute.
These two were unsuccessfully begging for some food.
We saw only one well developed eider duck chick. I’m guessing the eider ducks had nested and raised their chicks over a month before.
So it wasn’t all puffins on the Isle of May, but an array of other exceptional birds too.
Sarah's Wildlife Watch 