Mental Manx

In all my years of going around the Farne Islands I have never seen as many Manx Shearwaters resting on the water. Yes we do get large numbers but never as many just resting on the water.

We have had small groups and very large groups and today was one of the large groups.

We dropped or guests on the Inner Farne and went for a look for the Baleric Sherwaters and we did find 1 all on it's own, which was really nice and we did see 3 together the day before, which I think is a record for the Farnes but I'm still waiting to find out. The Farnes has had more than 3 before but not 3 resting on the water waiting to be photographed.

Anyway we looked a little further ahead and saw a massive flock resting on the water. All I heard from Andy my crewman was "Bloody Hell that goes further than my Bins can see".  I think we had it in our heads we would see 200 or so but so many and altogether was just out of this world.

We slowly got closer and closer and then started to count and count some more. We had over 1000 altogether and over the last few days you could not get near them, but today they did not want to move at all. I was clicking away when Andy said that I had to look over the side of the boat. There in the water were loads of dead sandeels. We both looked at each other and said that's why they are not flying away as they are full to the brim with sandeels. 

This is when you can just take as many pictures as you like or just sit back and watch them. Today we did both.

PUFFINUS PUFFINUS