Is it a puffin? Is it a puppet? - The Farne Islands/United Kingdom

“You've Got Mail” seems like an innocent phrase. Checking my in-box, I see I have an article from Mom about the puffins that like to call the Farne Islands home for a few months out of the year from late April to sometime in June.

“Where are these Farne Islands, Mom?,” I ask her across the kitchen table because for some reason a lot of our Where Are We Traveling to Next conversations just happen to take place at said table.

Turns out the Farne Islands sit off the eastern coast of the United Kingdom kind of close to the Scottish border but officially in the U.K. The islands belong to the National Trust. Other than a lighthouse that houses some park rangers, the islands are uninhabited...at least by humans.

And so it begins. The Quest to See the Puffins of the Farne Islands.

Mom loves puffins. I love puffins.  I even like cereal called Puffins (not made out of puffins. mind you.  They have a picture of a puffin on the box.  If one collects the bar codes from Barbara's Puffins cereal one can adopt a puffin.  Check it out.) Puffins are  undeniably adorable.   Because they are adorable, we plan a vacation around seeing them. There does not need to be another reason.   I thought that when we traveled to another uninhabited island a few years ago off the coast of Ireland called Skellig Michael to see puffins, that would be the end of the puffin-quest.  After all, we saw puffins there.   But there was a problem and that problem has been brewing for almost 3 years now.   I made the very tactical error of taking a photo of a puffin that has been referred to as “The Quintessential Puffin Photo.”  This puffin appeared out of the craggy rocks before me and then proceeded to pose so I could get some terrific close-up photos. The puffin turned a little to the left, a little to the right, stood patiently whilst I clicked away.   It was a photo shoot extraordinaire. I knew when I finished taking the photos that somehow this would come back to haunt me. Mom had already started to make her way back down to the boat ( you would have to read the story in the Ireland blog about the rest of that adventure) so she was not nearby. The fact that I, not she, took that photo has been an issue.   Oh, yes, believe it.   She wants the opportunity to take her own “Quintessential Puffin Photo.” Perhaps the Farne Islands will be an opportunity to correct this injustice. :)

Puffins seem to choose rather elusive places to court and mate. We do our research which results in the following. We fly to Edinburgh, Scotland, rent a car, drive across the Scotland/U.K. Border, drive through the region of Northumberland and arrive in a town called Seahouses where we will be staying for a few nights. It is from Seahouses that we will take a boat to the puffins of the Farne Islands. Not sure exactly which day we will be taking the boat because it depends on weather and tides but we will leave that up to our local advisers to decide.

(We are also very excited at the prospect of donning our "The Puffies" pins.  Special ordered...they have our names and yes, Mom, Linda and I for this trip are lovingly known and pinned as The Puffies.)  

Let me back up a bit more at this point in our story. We are in Seahouses in the month of May. Seahouses is a quaint, backwater town. It has a few shops selling puffin related souvenirs, an ice cream shop that has been there forever and an assortment of restaurants most with a nautical theme but one Italian place called Elan which had a yummy pizza made with Peking duck.   I know.   A Peking Duck pizza in an Italian restaurant in a little sleepy town in the U.K. Who would have imagined that?  It also has the place that we called home for a few days, St. Cuthbert's House.

St. Cuthbert's House used to be a church. The current owners, Jeff and Jill transformed it into a rather posh place to stay. I wrote a review on TripAdviser which goes into great detail.  I mention this here because back in January, Mom and I were having another one of the our kitchen table conversations ….

Mom: “ Don't you think you should contact..what's the name of that place? St. Something Church and make reservations?” (Remember it is January; we are traveling in May)

Me: “Mom, come on. Really? Who is going to be traveling to the back of beyond to stay in some renovated church to then go see some puffins? I do not think the whole world is going to be flocking (get it?) to Seahouses. I am sure we have time to make our reservations. Geez....”

I eat crow (yet another bird reference. Are you with me here with the bird humor?). To my credit, because I have to retain some sense of dignity, I do contact St. Cuthbert's House in January shortly after my conversation with Mom because although I protest a lot, I usually follow her advice.

“Yes, we can certainly accommodate your request to stay at St. Cuthbert's,”  Jeff tells me, “with the exception of the last 2 days that you would like to stay here as we are already fully booked .”

Okay: sidebar time. Fully booked? How? Who else could possibly know about this place? I had never even heard of the Farne Islands or the town of Seahouses for my 52+ years on the planet so how could anyone else know of their existences?!   Well, evidently lots of people from birdwatchers, wildlife lovers, researchers, people who simply love the seaside, people who love this part of the world so much they return to visit on a yearly basis. They all know about this area of the world. I seem to be the last to know. Thankfully, we can stay at St. Cuthbert's for four days of our requested six. So I only had to eat crow partially.

Upon our arrival at St. Cuthbert's after settling in to our lovely accommodations (our room has a chandelier and girlie pillows and brocade patterned bedding...happiness), we have to ask Jeff and Jill the all-important question...the reason for the journey...

“Have the puffins arrived on the Farne Islands?'

Cue the music. Long suspenseful moment....

“Yes, there are thousands of them by all reports. They have arrived,” Jeff tells us. “As a matter of fact, I have taken the liberty of arranging tickets for you on Captain Mike's boat tomorrow at noontime if that will be okay with you”.

Oh, it's more than okay. We (we being Mom, myself and our friend from Linda who has joined us from where she resides outside of London for Puffin-Quest 2014) are so excited to know that we did it. We made it this far and will actually see the puffins.

It sounds so cliché to say it was a beautiful, sunny day but here I go. It was a beautiful, sunny, perfect day to sail to the Farne Islands. Picture perfect weather is not always easy to come by in the U.K. but we were blessed.

As we sail by the island of Inner Farne or maybe it was Outer Farne...I get the Farnes confused, we see all kinds of wildlife from guillemots to shags to grey seals and their pups. I shout out, “Look Mom, a puffin.” She just shakes her head because the puffin I am pointing out is at the end of my hand in the form of a puffin puppet. (I had to have a Plan B in case this trip did not go as anticipated and yes, the puppet is my pathetic Plan B).

We arrive at our destination. We disembark. The cacophony of bird sounds leaves no doubt that we have arrived. The sounds are mostly coming from arctic terns who are also nesting and mating and they are everywhere. They are beautiful birds too but I'm sorry...we are here to see puffins. We see lots...thousands truly...of all kinds of birds as we walk along....and yes, they are lovely but....

“Oooohhhh, what's that I see? Over there...Mom, Mom, Mom....look...”

But I am too late. She is already in the midst of taking photos of the first of hundreds (dare I say thousands?) of puffins we see. They are everywhere. Amongst the crags of the grassy land where they like to make their burrows to nest, along the cliff sides, on the rooftop of the lighthouse, bobbing in the waters, flying here there and everywhere, preening, posing, playing.

We have arrived.

The puffins have arrived.

The camera is getting quite a workout as Mom clicks away.

“Mom, you may not want to get that close to those eggs,” I say as Mom is taking some photos of the eggs belonging to the arctic terns.

“It's okay. I'm being careful. I'm not.....” As she is talking, a protective arctic tern, probably Daddy Tern, dive bombs ME (maybe because I am taller than Mom so he got to me first) and pecks my head as if to say, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”   It is like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds here.   I say out loud, “Hey, bird, that is not fair. I am not the one taking the photos and getting too close to the eggs!!”

Mom gets her photos. I get bird-pecked. The perfect vacation. 

It is fair to say the Mom does get more than one “Quintessential Puffin Photo” that day.

I sigh with relief.

 

I smile.  I quietly and with confidence think I can put away the puffin puppet for now.