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Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Puffinery

See a large version of this puffinery (256kb) - slow download on dialup

Puffin

Fratercula artica

Gaelic: Fachach, Budhaig

Photography © Bob Medland
Airighean a' Beàgh Puffinery
Shiant Islands - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
July, 2008

"We stayed on the Shiants for a week, ringing Puffins and others. ... we climbed up the cliff...it was quite a hairy climb at times but well worth it for the view. We went on over Garbh Eilean to ring Bonxie chicks and then down the northern slope of Airghean a' Bhàigh where the main Puffinery is and back along the boulder scree of Carnach Mhor...

This one is of the Puffinery on Garbh Eilean"

(See Bob's photos of the view from the top of the island, and his other photos of the Shiants in our Island pictures section)

 

Our Puffin photographs

Puffin	Puffin includes in flight	Puffins with Razorbill	Puffinery (Puffin burrows)

 

• Puffin
• Fratercula artica
• Gaelic: Fachach, Budhaig
• WI: Abundant migrant breeder (10,000+ breeding pairs)
  The colonies on the Shiant Islands and St Kilda are the largest in the UK.

 

According to the Birds Brittanica the allcomers record for one puffin's beakfull of fish is 62 fish!

Puffins bring up baby pufflings in puffinries - underground burrows.

The collective name for auks is a raft, colony, flock of auks.

 

 

Puffin records in the Western Isles

Abundant migrant breeder (10,000+ breeding pairs)
The colonies on the Shiant Islands and St Kilda are the largest in the UK.
Source: Outer Hebrides Bird Report (2001)

On the chart below the darker the shade of blue the more abundant the bird is during a month or the more likely you are to see it.

J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D

(Source: Outer Hebrides Birds Checklist)

 

Other local bird photographs

Sources of information for the bird sightings section

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