cat63 | (no subject)

Time to begin the Holiday Photo Bombardment :)

I know that, like me, a lot of you like the puffins best of all, so I shall start with some pictures of them, even though we didn't go to see them until Thursday :)

We go nearly every year to visit the puffins on Lunga and mostly they trundle about , quite unconcerned about the funny humans and their doings. This time though they were rathe more interested in the funny visitors - and not at all shy about investigating us and our stuff…

This one crawled under Rob's leg to get a look at his camera case, which we think was being eyed up as a potential shed.

This one was more interested in my boots, I think I should write to the manufacturer and suggest they market them as "Tasted and Approved by the Puffins of Lunga"

Faithful Hound-Puffin :)

Puffin depilatory service. It's a snip…

This one was so bold as to hop up on my knee and then have a nibble at my fingers. A bit cheeky, but they're so cute, who could mind?

"Make sure you get my best side!" This one was quite interested in Rob's dangling lens cover :)

More puffins will be along later :)

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Oh, adorable puffins! On your KNEES :) I luff them. The first shot is brilliant. *ded of cute fellows*

Resisting the temptation to hug them and squeeze them and call them George was very hard indeed :)

I would have been rootling in my pockets for anything that might be tasty to nine out of ten puffins.

The really important question is: how could you leave?

Alas, i hadn't a single sand-eel about my person at the time. A foolish oversight, but there you go :)

The really important question is: how could you leave?

With great reluctance!

So completely adorable. Is that one puffin or more than one? It may be a very precocious puffin, or it might be a trend. And why aren't you going back right this minute to take more pictures of social puffins for me? Hmm?

I'm not sure if it was more than one puffin, but it was several different occasions, so I suspect so. And I have a picture which I will post later of several of them ganging up on a hapless lady's toes, so....

And why aren't you going back right this minute to take more pictures of social puffins for me? Hmm?

Purely for financial reasons, I assure you :)

There will be more puffin pictures when I get a tuit of appropriate rotundity, and the really good news is we've booked another week on Mull in October, although we may not get to go and see the puffins then.

Crikey! I'll definitely have to go to Lunga some time, I reckon. The Skomer ones let me get within about three feet, but that was all.

You could perhaps open a depilation/pedicure salon with a flock of puffins; that'd give the feet-nibbling fish folk pause for thought! :-)

This is the first time in about five years of visits that the puffins have been quite so interactive! :)

Usually they just ignore the people on their turf...

You could perhaps open a depilation/pedicure salon with a flock of puffins; that'd give the feet-nibbling fish folk pause for thought! :-)

Hee! Especially if the puffins invaded the fish salon !

They're certainly much bolder than their West Welsh friends. My userpic was taken from a range of about a yard. If people got closer than that, they'd quietly stroll away.

If I can scrape together enough cash for a trip, especially for the ferry fares and the diesel, I'm sorely tempted to go there, maybe in the next year or two. I could even squeeze in a trip to Oban distillery (as long as I could find a place to stay within walking distance)...

There's a rather nice chocolate shop in Oban too, if you care for such things :)

Also, a shop near the ferry terminal which sells a variety of local whiskies.

I'd have to be careful, otherwise I might just be dragged kicking and screaming into each of those... :-)

Oh, the humanity! ;)

Incomprehensible squeeing at the cuteness of the puffins

I remain undecided as to whether they're ridiculously adorable or adorably ridiculous :)

I'd go with both :)

Good choice :)

OMG!! I want to go there!

Such adorable little birds, and I have never seen one in real life!

They're lovely aren't they? :)

Unfortunately, the puffins nest at the top of a cliff and getting there involves scrambling across a rocky beach and climbing a steep footpath. It's not a huge distance, but it might be a bit too difficult for you, perhaps :(

There are other places to see them which are a little more accessible (Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire for instance) but the flipside of that of course is that the birds are more wary of people...

The trip to Scotland would be difficult enough for me at the moment - and expensive because I couldn't make the journey in a day and would need to rely on guest houses :(

I swear that, one day, I will manage the journey though :)

Yes, it's a long way :(

But the puffins are worth it :)

AW! So cute and so cheeky. I bet they taste bad or they would have been darwined out by now ;-)

Actually Icelanders eat them, but fortunately they don't come out to Lunga to hunt them :)

But then the range of native available food in Iceland is pretty narrow, so i suppose they had to eat pretty much anything they could get their hands on before international shipping was invented :)

You've read some of my entries about the food Icelanders eat - none of it sounds palatable, and it is entirely likely that if it tastes bad that they just melt suet over it or dip it in mayonnaise and eat it anyway....

Yes. I am jolly grateful I was not born an Icelander, let me tell you! :)

These birds are the cutest EVER. I love that top photo....if that is a zoom lens on Rob's camera it was sorely out of place.

Looking forward to more piccies!

They're just ridiculously adorable. They call the trip out to Lunga "Puffin Therapy" and it's quite accurate, I reckon :)