Farne Islands 2017

It’s become an annual ritual to visit the Farne Islands over recent years, so much so that I usually take a week or so off work around the busiest time for the seabirds there. Unfortunately, on all but one occasion it’s been overcast this being the worst trip weather wise.  Not only was there no sunshine at all but it was particularly dim which, if you want to take a photograph of a smallish, fast flying black and white bird against a grey sea or sky, it’s not only difficult to focus but as you can see from the pictures below, makes the image background washed out. 

Now I could with the magic of software, replace the background with blue sky (see below example), but that just wouldn’t feel right to pretend that was the way it was.

You can book your place on one of the many boat services that take you to the islands but I don’t, rather hoping on the day there will be spaces, especially during the week days. However, this time they were booked up and I had to wait a couple of hours for the next available boat with free space.

The trip itself was the usual journey around the islands and a chance to see and photograph the wildlife from the sea, though if you want to take photographs I recommend you get a seat at the side of the boat which I wasn’t and had a hard time trying to get a view past a person who thought it was a good idea to bring their iPad along as a camera (who brings their iPad along as a camera on a boat trip to the Farnes!! Why can’t they just use the camera on their phone?).

If you land on Inner Farne you have to pass by the Terns who nest right on the walkway so are not too happy with people walking by.  A good photo opportunity if you don’t mind braving being attacked by one or more of the angry Terns.  You have two ways to do this.  Follow someone else and let them be the bait and photograph the Terns attacking them or put a wide angle lens on your camera set it to a fast frame rate, manual focused to around a foot and just hold that above your head as you move through a swarm of them.

It is mainly the Puffins I come to see and photograph however, though perhaps next time I might just spend a bit more time looking around and just enjoying the brief time you have on the island.  I spent too much time trying in vain to get decent images of the Puffins flying in from the sea and conditions were just against me.  Not only the lack of contrast of the bird against the background made focusing difficult in the grey, dull conditions but I had to use exposure compensation to prevent a dark silhouette, which instead meant blowing out the skies.  A quick bit of editing below could fix that but not sure about the photographic ethics of that.

Trying to photograph the Puffins in the sky meant I neglected what was happening on the ground.  Anyone who has been to the Farnes will know what a hard time these poor Puffins have when brining in food for their young as waiting by their burrows are various gulls, ambushing the Puffins on arrival.  To avoid this, the Puffins try to fly literally, into their burrows.  This means getting that iconic image of a Puffin standing around with a beak full of eels, difficult, but if you’re quick you might get an action shot of the gull trying to rob an incoming Puffin.

The next couple of photographs are poor but do show a few things.  The first just how close the Puffins get when flying in and can fly right past you.  The second, just how close the an angry Tern can get to you.

Photographic Details

If you’re interested the technical details all but the last were taken with the Canon 400mm f5.6 lens, the last being a Canon 17-40mm at the widest view.  Because of the lighting conditions exposure compensation of +1-2 stops was given.  Auto ISO was also used.

Read More

A Farne Islands Return - Part 1

Well, it’s that time of year again when it’s time to pay a visit to the Farne Islands.  I often take a week or two off work around the busiest time on the islands, when the various chicks are needing regular feeding and, too much later, will have fledged.  As always the weather played a determined part in my going, with Monday looking ok’ish, Tuesday and Wednesday rain forecasted and Thursday, Friday…well the forecasters are hopeless and predicting a reliable weather report that far ahead, so didn’t want to risk waiting. Monday it was.

The whole Farne Islands experience starts with the boat trip around the islands where they stop right up to the cliffs where there is an assortment of nesting birds including Puffins, Shags, Kittiwakes and Guillemots.  There was even a sight of a Gannet.

As well as the birds on the cliffs, you’re taken around the seal colony.  They seemed quite un phased and indifferent by it all, these tourists packed inside a boat gawking at them, despite again, getting close up.

Finally comes the landing on Inner Farne, just one of the islands that makes up the Farnes.  Everybody’s pre warned and ready for what comes next!  Head protection on, as it’s the gauntlet of Terns once you’re off the boat and walk up the board walk, past the Tern nests.  Each year, despite the thousands of visitors, the Terns still nest in the same place, often a few feet away from where people pass.  I suppose the official reason for the attacks is that they are protecting their nests, but watching I can’t help but wonder if they don’t do it because they enjoy it.  I stopped to take one photo of the below Tern who just starred at me with a grumpy look, otherwise I did what I do every year which is walk past, wide angle lens on my camera which is set to the fastest frames per second possible, point up and walk!

Most shots are out of focus or out of frame but the occasional one is just about right.  It’s not so much the pecking I’m concerned about but what the other end of the bird can do and looking at the jackets of the helpers on the island who are there daily, it’s probably wise not to hang around.  Besides you have less than an hour on the island which may seem a while but that time soon goes.

The main part of the trip, at least from a photographic point of view are the Puffins and there is not short supply of them.  The boardwalks continue around the island and through the vegetation where the Puffin burrows are where the chicks are in the nests.  For anyone who has never been to the islands the sight and sound is amazing.  Much like the Terns, the Puffins are also nesting right past where you walk, though unlike the Terns the Puffins have a bit more of a easy going nature – maybe too much so as they have to pass the gauntlet that are the gulls, intent of robbing them of their Sand eel catch.  They fly in and are immediately accosted by the gulls often five or more and have to scramble into their burrows.  Little chance then of the classic photograph of a Puffin with a beak full of the eels then.

Having not even looked at a third of the images taken on the day, I’ve decided to break this down into two different blogs with the second part coming after I’ve had a chance to look at the remaining photographs I took on the day.  Hopefully there might be a few ‘special’ ones.

Read More

A short, long Farne Island trip

What is now becoming a bit of an annual pilgrimage at the back end of June for me, is a trip to the Farne Island.  At this time of year the chicks have hatched, particularly the Puffins, and so there is a feeding frenzy on before most of the Islands occupants move on in a few months time. This year I took a change of lens with me.  Instead of the usual 400mm I took the Sigma 500mm just to see if it made any difference – it did, but more in a negative way, the reasons of which I hope to cover in a future post, lets just say having a more mobile lens to photograph birds that are all around you and where getting close is not an issue, was more important.  From a photographic point of view, the day was very disappointing with poor light for most of the time and only a couple of images turning out to be what I would call decent, but the trip itself can’t fail but be an amazing sceptical and always worth it. So out of the few that did survive being deleted, these are probably some of the better ones.

Guillemot with chick taken from the boat

Strangely enough, my favourite image of the trip came, not from the big lens, but from my 17-40mm @ 17mm

They don’t always have to be close ups – Puffin with a backdrop of grey skies

Each year I’ve wanted to get the iconic image of the Puffin with a mouth full of eels, but for most of them, arriving back to the chicks means being ‘mugged’ by awaiting gulls so they don’t tend to hang around.  However on the cliff edges away from the main Puffin borrows and the gulls, seems to be a bit more relaxed and this lone Puffin posed for me long enough for me to get a converter attached and was the only time having the extra reach of the 500mm (plus x1.4 converter) lens was an advantage. Perhaps, at least in part, the reason for the lack of photographic success on this occasion was my using public transport to get to Seahouses, the jump off point to the Farne Islands, which meant I was shattered by the time I started photographing.  Despite being relatively close to Newcastle, the journey took nearly three and a half hours as a rather uncomfortable bus went to every small village and town on the east coast of Northumberland south of Seahouses!  Add to this a delay due to the tide in setting off, the boat trip that lasts over an hour (it tours the islands), leaving officially and hour on the island, though more like forty five minutes once disembarked and on location.  All in all, I left home at 7:30 am and got back 8:45 pm – a long day for 45 minutes!

Read More

Back to the Farne Islands

After my visit to the Farne Islands last year, I wanted to make a return this year, choosing the exact same date as, as it happens, there was a break in the poor weather we’ve been having.  Strangely, it was the exact opposite of last year where it was sunny until I got to the islands when it became overcast.  This time no sun was forecasted but there was the chance of rain, however, as the boat approached the Islands the sky over the North Sea was completely clear leaving the clouds over the mainland.

One of the boats transporting people to and from the Islands

Before landing on the main island – Inner Farne – the boat took a trip around some of the other islands that make up the Farnes, giving some good views of Guillemots perched on the cliffs.  Once landed, it was a case of running the gauntlet of Terns which nested right next to the walkway as they didn’t seem to take too kindly to people walking right past their chicks.  Head protection definitely recommended!

Because you have only an hour on the island, I decided to head directly to the spot that had given me the best views of the Puffins and hopefully, with the experience gained last year, I would get some good images.  It was good to see that there seemed as many as before and they seemed to be as active, as with all the heavy rain over the last few months along with the cold spells, their nests in their underground burrows may have been in trouble.

You can’t help but feel sorry for Puffins.  As if it wasn’t enough that the weather this year has been particularly bad, and their food source is diminishing due to warming seas, they have to get through hundreds of Gulls waiting by their burrows to rob them of their hard earned catch as they fly in.

Leaving the Farnes in the distance for another year

As with the last time I went to the Farne Islands, I will do a second post to cover more of the images taken due to the large amounts to process.

Read More