King of the Castle o’ Burrian

It’s been great to watch the Puffins this year. This one was collecting last-minute bedding for its Puffling.

The air must get pretty foul deep in that Puffin burrow. Or maybe that should be fowl.

The light has been poor for weeks, but a good evening makes everyone forget that, as what counts as crowds on Westray come to admire their final days here.

There’s one Puffin doing its fascinating head-bobbing display on the most fabulously lichen-encrusted rock:

I’ve also had fun with close-up portraits. Puffins here know we’re not a threat, especially when we arrive slowly, crouch down and just sit a safe distance away from them. I couldn’t focus any closer on them, anyway.

There’s one Puffin on top of a soil hill. The vegetation has been killed by too much Puffin fertiliser. It stands there, master of all it surveys and spends time preening, displaying, looking for predators, responding to other Puffins and entertaining me. It’s the entertaining bit which isn’t deliberate.

If it’s the king of the castle, what does that make me? Lying on the ground in these muddy clothes? I think I must be the dirty rascal.