Guillemots swimming – Farne Islands

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Farne Islands to film puffins underwater. It was a tall order. Puffins are easily-spooked and speedy swimmers. Great shots of them underwater are rare.

I developed a puffin plan and with skipper Ron Cooper at the helm of Mara Mhor, we set off chasing puffins.

Thankfully, filming went extremely well. I had some truly magical moments underwater with adult puffins and baby pufflings darting around in front of my lens. The footage is pretty special and I’m in discussions with a broadcaster at the moment – which means I can’t share it here yet.

However I do have the next best thing: while I was filming puffins, I was joined by guillemots and I can show you how spectacular they are. If you look very carefully, you might just catch a glimpse of a swimming puffin in the distance…

With thanks to Andrew Douglas of Sovereign Diving for organising the boat.

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Images and words by Andy