Birds on Hertford Island

The photos on this page show some of the birds on Hertford Island; they were taken from a good distance away using a telephoto setting, so they are not really close-ups, but they are the best I have.

The two birds in the centre of photo #1 are Atlantic puffins. This Wikipedia article tells us that the bill of an Atlantic puffin “is large and tri­angular and during the breeding season is bright orange with a patch of blue bordered by yellow at the rear. The characteristic bright orange bill plates grow before the breeding season and are […] used in courtship rituals, such as the pair tapping their bills together.” This Wikipedia article tells us that puffins “shed the colourful outer parts of their bills after the breeding season, leaving a smaller and duller beak.” The orange of their bills does not come across well in this photo but, under magnification in the origi­nal, it is clearly there; however, it is the smaller, dul­ler beak, not the gor­geous version seen in the photo in the first cited Wikipedia article.

The three birds at the far left and the pair left of centre at the top of the photo are razorbills; the black head of the right­most bird of the triplet can be easily made out in this version of the photo and, under magnification of the original, it is even possible to make out the markings which run from its eyes to the end of its bill.

The remaining bird in photo #1, perched right of centre, is a herring gull.

The seven birds in photo #2 are all razorbills; the one in the centre, perhaps a juvenile, has its wings extended and is beating them, though it also appears that it is hanging on to the cliff face for dear life! This is just my interpretation and I am very much not an expert bird watcher, so there may be a different motivation for this bird’s behaviour.

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Photo #3 shows a far less exotic blue heron, which has come to rest here on the rocks beside the water, perhaps to digest the meal it has caught. So far as I am aware, there are no blue heron colonies on the Bird Islands, but they are apparently frequent visitors to its shores.