"You're all slightly mad, aren't you?"
June 5, 2014 10:08 PM   Subscribe

Loafing with puffins. RSPB staff can be isolated for up to three weeks at a time on tiny Coquet Island, home to approximately 44,000 nesting seabirds, including rare terns, and puffins. Wardens Paul Morrison and Wesley Davis showed the BBC's Helen Mark around, and described their conservation work and what they get up to on rainy days.
"They look very Glam Rock but I have a suspicion it's going to be Abstract Jazz."
posted by Catch (10 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
So, Coquet Island also has Manx shearwaters - Puffinus puffinus [Thanks QI].
posted by unliteral at 10:23 PM on June 5, 2014


As a non-UK-resident I am proud of myself for correctly guessing that "RSPB" stands for "The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds". Hence I deserve a biscuit, or perhaps a piece of mackerel, if anyone is handing them out.
posted by XMLicious at 2:24 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]


XMLicious, locally (also not UK) we hand out chocolate fish for a guess well guessed.
posted by Catch at 3:05 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


Those are some avant-garde puffins: is that feedback coming from their piano at 0:42 and 1:11 in the last link?

XMLicious: The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds have been locked in a bitter struggle with their shadowy nemeses, the other RSPB, (‘The Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds’) for a thousand years…
posted by misteraitch at 3:42 AM on June 6, 2014 [6 favorites]


Puffins smell terrible, just thought you should know.
posted by scruss at 4:48 AM on June 6, 2014


Hey!

... I want my own pirate ship ...
posted by puffyn at 6:26 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm betting that whole island smells terrible.
posted by Bee'sWing at 7:25 AM on June 6, 2014


Here's a puffin cam! They're loud.
posted by leesh at 8:06 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


I am sometimes not much of a bird fan (Thanks, Hitchcock), but "They look very Glam Rock but I have a suspicion it's going to be Abstract Jazz" is a link I am always going to click and I'm very glad I did.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:43 AM on June 6, 2014


Judging by the interest in the bell, at least one puffin thinks it needs more cowbell.
posted by annsunny at 11:05 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


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