puffin island postcard.
on may day, we went to ynys sgomer, to visit the puffins. it rained and rained and rained; the wind caught up the salt-spray and hurled it straight & stinging into my eyes. at one point, i fell in the mud, and had to walk around for the rest of the day soaked and sodden right through all my layers of clothes. but none of that mattered, because there were bluebells stretching endlessly out towards the sea; huge gulls (the biggest in the world) wheeling and crying; whole symphonies of sea-campion. raindrops, as round and as perfect as music, garlanded every blade of grass. beneath the bracken, inaudible, unseen, voles scurried secretly. great fat rabbits grazed and warrened, reshaping the very surface of the land. offshore, the gannets screamed and the cargo ships wove their sombre way among the rocks; and, interwoven with it all, the sea, the sea, the soft breath of the sea.
and puffins! i’d never met a puffin before, and here there were so many (almost 40,000, apparently, with more expected to arrive later in the year)! it was early in the season, so they were returning from their long and lonely winters out at sea. couples were reconnecting, friends stood in little groups, catching up. old burrows were tidied up and made pretty with twigs and flowers; new burrows were dug with beak and foot, streaking soft dark earth down the white fronts of their builders.
and oh, the gentleness of puffins! the softness and the communality of their lives together! the way they create little puffin villages, communities. a burrow for everyone, and everyone in their burrow. to watch a puffin thoughtfully select a sprig of sea-campion, or a bluebell-stem, and carefully carry it down into a burrow, where their partner waits; the sound of the partner puffin receiving the gift, murmuring comfortably in gratitude. to see them waddling along, sometimes slowly, sometimes hurried (head down, wings held to the side: a posture suggestive of Important Business). to see them living, only living, deeply living, so indifferent to me!
i learnt so much from them.
from all of it.
from being there, that day, amongst the rain.
32 PHOTOGRAPHS FROM YNYS SGOMER.
BONUS ROUND.
who’s in here???
👀