Puffin Season on Rathlin Island- A Day Trip with RSPB NI and Kintra Boat Tours
RSPB NI recently invited me to a unique and exclusive viewing of the puffins at Rathlin Island!
If you already follow my work, you’ll know that I’m greatly inspired by nature, and puffins happen to be one of my favourite animals. So I was absolutely over the moon to receive such a special invite!
Rathlin Island is Northern Ireland’s only inhabited offshore island and it plays host to the distinctive birds every year. This rare opportunity allowed me to witness the beauty of Rathlin and see first-hand, the crucial conservation efforts led by RSPB NI.
Sadly, the puffin population has fallen by half in recent years. A major cause is predation by invasive non-native species that inhabit the island, especially Rathlin’s population of rats and ferrets.
However, things have been changing. IN 2021 LIFE Raft (Rathlin Acting for Tomorrow) got the go-ahead. The £4.5 million conservation project is designed to safeguard Rathlin Island’s internationally important seabird population and other wildlife. Over five years, the project aims to protect Rathlin’s threatened seabirds and ground-nesting birds through a programme to eradicate brown rats and ferrets. With its focus on natural heritage and community, the initiative will also help Rathlin Island’s economic recovery following the impact of Covid-19. The project is deeply rooted within the local community. Livestock will will also see benefits from the removal of non-native species. The project is also creating new jobs on the island.
LIFE Raft is just one of the projects RSPB NI are undertaking to protect, support and enhance the Rathlin Island community and its unique environment, including taking actions to be carbon neutral by 2030!
During the event; we had the chance to experience the spectacular sights of Rathlin’s renowned ‘Seabird Centre’ by sea, home to Puffins, Guillemtos, Kittiwakes, Razorbills, and more. We also got to have a look at the famous upside down lighthouse from the sea!
I’m a big fan of lighthouses and have actually been inspired by one of the lighthouses on Rathlin Island before. I think I’m definitely going to have to illustrate the other lighthouses on the island now as well!
I know this is a boring topic of conversation, but we were so lucky with the weather on the day! It felt like a holiday on a beautiful Mediterranean Island and seeing little flashes of orange beaks flying around us, landing in the sea made it an incredibly special day.
Kintra Boat tours made the most of the dry day and surprised us with an extra little excursion to the other side of the island on our way home! It was incredible to see more dramatic scenery and we even saw lots of seals too.
The seals were much more willing to have their photographs taken than the sea birds! I think I might need to invest in a better camera lens for the puffins next time, but I’m still just so delighted to have seen the sea birds up close in action!