Getting busy now.

What a beautiful week its been so far. With flat calm sea's, beautiful sunshine and thousands of birds.
Since Saturday the Puffin numbers have risen day by day, Guillemots are in the thousands, Razorbills are starting to pair off and the kittiwakes are back on the cliff faces.

On Saturday we headed out to Holy Island with a gang of kids and teachers for our 4 hour Winter trip. Maybe we should say Spring trip now. Never mind it was still a great trip.
We travelled along the coast passing Bamburgh Castle viewing lots of Common Scouter's, Puffins, Shags, Cuddie Ducks, (Eider Ducks) and Long-tailed Ducks.

As we arrived at Holy Island i could hardly keep the boat in one place as the tides were so strong. I know its lovely to see the moon in its full glory but when you get a moon as big as its has been for years you get the monster tides. I cant remember the tide being so big and so strong. We went up to St Curthberts Island for a look at the seals and a few waders. We turned around and headed towards Black Law Rock. 

As we approached the north side of the rock we were greeted by a 200+ Oystercatchers, 30 Dunlocks and 16 Turnstones.
 As Black Law Rock is mostly sand with rock on the top and pebbles around the side i was able to get the boat close so we could get a good view of the birds.

As we steamed slowly along Ross Sands we noticed a lot of Red necked grebes, some Red breasted Merganser's and about 100+ Pink footed  Geese. At first we saw what we thought was a big tree floating in the water but as we got closer we saw Pink footed Geese. I have never seen Geese just sitting on the sea before but it was nice to see.

On the way over to The Farnes we passed a few Puffins and Gannets.

When we arrived we saw lots of Guillemots and Shags.

Over the next few days the Puffins numbers rose and more Guillemots arrived. I know the weather will not last but I'm really enjoying it at the moment so I'm going to make the most of it.

On Monday the MCA came to inspect all the passenger boats for there out of water inspection, so its just the finishing touches to do to the boats now and we will be ready to get going for the season.

We have a few spaces left for our last 4 hour winter trip this Saturday so please give me a call.