Adventures with Peedies and......Puffins!!!!!!

Those boots are off again on a peedie adventure..........this time they are off to the Brough of Birsay looking for atlantic puffins!

The brough is a tidal island  only accessible at low water, at the north west point of Orkney, which is lovely to go and explore for the archaelogy and bonnie cliffs full of flowers and birds - but first we have to negotiate the beach (it's a hard life!) and walk across the causeway. As we head down the steps we spy an old tractor, how cool eh? Having a bit of sun on the beach, I suspect there was a boat involved in the tractors adventure on the beach I don't think the tractor is up for a bit of puffin adventurising with us today - never mind!

 Gorgeous day! How bonnie does that sand look, we come here quite often - the shell sand here is great for the hens and we often take home a bucket for them. Not today though, today is puffin exploring day!

 Over we go - a few nice fulmars tucked away on nests as we walk along.......

 And the sea pinks or thrift (Armeria maritima) are looking very gorgeous indeed.

 Looking out towards the west, nothing much to see but perhaps Canada in the very far distance, um however, its a few thousand miles away though! 

 More birds on cliffs but no puffins yet - a couple of fulmars

 I love the cliffs they are so rugged in Orkney - and teaming with life!

Now what are those guys looking at over there - they seem very interested in what they are doing! Me thinks they spy puffins! They do, they do, they spy puffins! Try and find them, to the right of the men, down a bit on that ledge before it opened up a bit....can you find them? Right there in the centre of the picture, three black and white dots!

 Oh look a bit closer there be three puffins, you'll have to squint very hard to see them!!!!!

How excited am I?

 One, two, three, puffins! Time to get over to where those guys are on the cliffs! To say we walked at speed would be a little of an understatement, but you cannot exactly run full tilt on the edge of cliffs with bunny and puffin burrows everywhere!!! These awesome birds only come to land during the breeding season - so you've a short window of opportunity to see them!

Hello my pretty, pretty, pretty gorgeous puffin! I'm currently on my belly - lying out on the furthest bit of the cliff I'm safely allowed to by Mr Flowers. Given my ability for clumsiness - he's always a bit nervous of my cliff action!

 Now, these are not the best photos of puffins in the world - but these are MY photos of puffins - I'm so happy a few of them worked out I want to do a little dance. (In fact I will, right now in my chair!)

Its just a look to the left...............

And then a look to the right..............thank you very much monseuir le puffin - I'll leave you in peace now! During all the mad photo taking, Peedie pup was very good - so we had a lovely scamp on the beach on the way back to the car!

 Time for your photo sir Peedie - sorry about all the puffin pics we love you too!

 And, now for your close up, oh dear you're too busy licking your nose! Gamerboy even came long on the walk today and the cellist - hes wandering off in the backgroud - they were both very keen to see puffins too and were also enthusiastically helping to take photos!

 Time for a quick dip in the sea! We didn't want to go back to the car all clean and dry did we?

 Quick expore of a few rock pools and the inlets under the causeway we walked along.......so thats how the sea gets out!

 And, time to plod back up the steps to the car - me thinks an ice-cream is in order to complete the day out looking for puffins!

  Well aside an ice-cream and the cost of petrol a lovely *free* day out in gorgeous Orkney. Now we all know the weather can be a bit unpredictable here - so the old addage - 'it  pays to make hay whilst the sun shines' seems appropriate - although we weren't hay making, we were puffin adventurising - which did pay off!