Derek Smith was fortunate enough to spend several months as a resident wildlife warden on the Farne Islands, off the Northumberland coast, in 1974, and was so smitten by them that he has revisited many times since. Derek is a keen and extremely knowledgeable ornithologist as well as mammalogist (he is Treasurer of the Surrey Bat Group and a bat licence holder), and presented a spellbinding talk, detailing the life histories of the various bird species that nest on the islands interspersed with anecdotes about living there and the history of the region.
Nesting shag on Inner Farne (© Derek Smith).
One of Northumberland's most famous historical figures, Saint Cuthbert, set up a hermitage on Inner Farne in 676-684, incidentally instituting protection laws for the eider ducks there. But what the Farnes are really famed for are the sheer numbers of nesting seabirds. By far the most numerous are guillemot and puffin, numbering just over 48,000 and 73,000 respectively this year, but razorbill, kittiwake, fulmar, shag, cormorant, three species of tern (common, sandwich and roseate) and gulls (lesser black-backed, herring and black-headed), as well as eider, all breed here too.
Some species are faring better than others. For example, roseate terns were once a common feature of the islands, with 100 pairs breeding in 1961, but a slow and steady decline saw the species become extinct as a breeder on the islands in 2002. Things may be looking up, however, as two pairs bred here in 2009, and nearby Coquet Island is reporting an impressive 86 nesting pairs. Puffin numbers have fallen by a third in the past five years, from over 110,000 in 2003, although to put this into context, there were only 13,600 when the first detailed count took place in 1969. The Farnes' other major attraction is the grey seals which abound there, the current population being some 3000 to 4000 strong.
The other striking feature for visitors to Inner Farne is how close you can get to the wildlife, with terns and eiders nesting inches from the boardwalks that have been constructed to protect the habitat. Indeed, the terns can get too close for comfort, regularly dive-bombing visitors - sturdy headgear is recommended! This does, however, enable those with even fairly ordinary cameras to get extraordinarily close-up shots of these beautiful creatures in their full breeding plumage, although I suspect Derek was being characteristically modest when he claimed that anyone could take the kind of stunning photographs that he used to illustrate his talk (one of which is shown here).
Derek ended his talk by exhorting anyone who has not been to the Farnes to go there immediately - well, not just yet perhaps, the best time to visit being June.
Lynn Whitfield