The Puffins of Lunga Island

The turf is uneven and springy, a pleasant change to the rocky island shore I’ve just clambered across to get here. Everywhere I go I’m trying to tread lightly. The way ahead is strewn with tufts of bright green, coarse grass. Further on I can see that the path becomes muddier as it hugs the cliff edge, with sharper stones under foot, but here there is green all around, punctuated by many round holes, some barely visible. In the distance the sea meets the shore with its distinctive crash. All around the wind whistles, but the dominant sound is the call of seabirds, seabirds in huge numbers. Seabirds screeching, crying, rending the air with harsh cackles from far way on their sheer, precipitous island-edge roosts and from the air, flying in even at head height and eye level. Closer to me, too, the reason I’m watching where I plant my feet. A bubbling noise, a quizzical burble, emanates from the round holes, for they are the cosy burrows of puffins. They announce their arrival and then waddle into view on their gigantic feet, their colourful bills often full of the sand eels that they love to eat.

Such were my first impressions of Lunga, an uninhabited island off Mull in Scotland. Well, uninhabited by humans. As you have no doubt worked out, the feathered population is abundant. Gannets, razorbills and shags cling to the cliffs, while in the rolling grassland the puffins make their home. Puffins are the main reason why people visit Lunga. It seems that the birds have realised that the presence of humans deters their main predators, the sea eagles. As such they do more than tolerate the influx of visitors. They positively welcome them, going about their business unafraid of the two-legged, wingless giants who are eager to take their pictures. It is easy to see why so many people make the journey. The puffins are beautiful birds. Their distinctive faces are easy to imbue with human-like emotions. My husband took a picture of a fleeting moment when two of them touched beaks and we fancied that they were a pair deeply in love, celebrating their union with a kiss. Anthropomorphism aside, the busy nature of the birds, their shuffling, waddling walk, their constant chatter and trusting attitude towards humans all serve to endear them easily to the rapt observer. They’re fun to watch and it’s fascinating to get to know them and their antics, even for just a short while.

Apparently they call it “puffin therapy”, heading out from Mull harbour to spend time with the birds and forget your own troubles. The birds fly, they catch their food, they burrow, they eat. It’s simple, pared down living. They get the basics right and are content. They’re also really cute and sure to raise a smile just from being puffins at close hand. Perhaps their trust plays a part too. They aren’t afraid of you, even though you’re towering over them. You live up to their trust and high opinion of you by becoming somehow gentler, calmer, content to slow down, pause for a while and just take in the view — the view of birds as far as your eyes can see. You are on a small, remote rock with sea all around and thousands, literally thousands of birds. It is really quite humbling. In the grand scheme of things, against the backdrop of the enormity of the universe, you too are small. A human on earth, small and vulnerable, one tiny being in a great swirling mass, bumbling about and living your life, just like a Lunga puffin.

Somewhere across the rolling waves, not so very far away but far enough, lies Staffa, another little turf-topped island with steep sides hewn from volcanic stone. This is the home of Fingal’s Cave, dark and deep, with sea of the purest, clearest blue at its foot. This wave-carved cavern was the inspiration for Felix Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides Overture”, a sublime piece of music composed after a trip in a small boat in very rough weather that famously made its originator feel extremely unwell. For those with weak stomachs or strong, the appeal of Staffa lies in its quiet desolation, appreciated by descending into its rocky depths and climbing to its breezy summit. There is a solitary beauty there amongst the tall basalt columns. Lunga, by contrast, is teeming with life. Every twist and turn of the path reveals a new feathered creature, its carefully tended home, its family, its daily toil, its play. You can feel a kind of kinship with the birds, in the middle of the sea but not alone, sharing a unique and rugged space with them. The stunning views from cliff to horizon are populated with birds in flight, at sea, on their nests and walking at your feet. You are all at the mercy of the elements but you are in this precarious position together. There is a comfort in that.

Taking the time to travel out to Lunga and meet the local avian population forces a welcome shift in perspective. To cross the waves in a tiny craft and land on an island with no roads, few paths and a lot of windswept grass, cliffs and birds is an amazing thing. You pause for a while and gaze out at the rest of the Treshnish Islands, rocks exposed in a vast expanse of choppy water, then you look back inland and perceive a mass of feathers and beaks, flapping, squawking and burbling. This space belongs to the birds and it assaults your senses with the sound, the terrain and even the smell. Where so many birds gather, of course, they have to poop, which is altogether rather pungent but adds still more to the impression that this is an “other” place, a separate kingdom of puffins and their friends. It is far removed from the everyday and a visit there is something to be truly cherished. As the boat turned away from the shore and headed back to the comfort of Mull, I knew I’d soon be walking on solid ground again. With tarmac under my feet I would stride out into civilisation, partake of idle conversation, seek human companionship and perhaps a wee dram of the local Tobermory Distillery single malt. Somewhere out across the darkening waves, though, I knew that the puffins were still out there. Remembering them with a smile, I realised that I would never forget them and the world they welcomed me into, just for a short while.