This card ‘Loyalty’ is from our Friendship range. The two puffins are perching on a rock on the Isle of May. It’s an island that my wife Tamara and I visited in 2012. I went again in 2015 to look at and photograph puffins.
The Isle Of May is a little sliver of an island, just one-and-a-half kilometres long. It is located in the mouth of the Firth of Forth. The island is much nearer to the north side of the Firth, so it’s quite a journey to get there, setting off from Berwick on the southern shore.
Beyond the mouth of the Firth of Forth you are out into the North Sea. So there’s a real sense of being out with elemental nature when you go out to the island.
As well as thousands of breeding pairs of puffins there are also other sea birds. There are thousands upon thousands of breeding pairs of kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, and greater and lesser black-backed gulls on the island.
So where does loyalty come in? Well, puffins are loyal and breed with the same mate each year. And they will re-use the same nest site each year, too.
Photograph Works 
I love puffins … who doesn’t?! 🙂 Must have been a wonderful feeling — going out there and experience the elements. We do have a colony, not too far from here; Machias Seal Island.
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Yes, you’re right. It makes me happy. Have you been out to the island near you?
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No. Not yet. It takes a great deal of planning to go there, and I’m not even sure I’m fit enough to climb it, once I get off the boat. It’s protected, and the boat only takes so many people out there at the time.
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It sounds a bit like Bass Rock that I mentioned in the post – sheer sided, and boats only able to land when the sea is calm. But there’s no planning – just book space on the boat, and go.
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Yeah, that’s pretty much it
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