Puffins

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Europe=>Norway=>Western Norway=>Runde

9^th July Runde

A couple of pleasant drive along waterfronts, over very steeply humpbacked bridges and we arrived on the island of Runde. This is only a small place of steep cliffs that is known for its bird life, most notably puffins.

The campsite is small and pleasant (helped by good weather) and right at the foot of the trail up the hill to a series of walks over the hilltops. As soon as you get up to the boggy, peaty area at the top you hear the Arctic skuas that are hiding in the long grass, circling above and sometimes just sitting on a rock waiting to have their photo taken. Further up at the cliff’s edge you look down the sheer cliff sides to see, hear and smell the vertical gannet nesting colony. Thousands of birds perched on narrow ledges, all just on one section of the island’s cliffs. Moving round the cliff edges further you can see the puffins circling around, going out fishing then returning to their nests, again thousands of them. We returned up to the puffin area at 9pm (fun walking in sunshine at that time of night), the light was perfect on their section of the cliffs and the puffins were more settled, lots of photo opportunities (and lots of photographers). Circling among all of these were a few white tailed eagles, kittiwakes and guillemots. This is a delightfully relaxing place to be, walking up in the hills with sea birds and larks singing, there are a number of visitors but it’s still very quiet and peaceful. Decided to spend an extra day here and did similar walks today.

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