25 to 30: 36 Views
View Twenty Five: Chris Redfern and A Place for Puffins
Slowly emerging from the haar A flat grass plateau Above a maze of tunnels Webbed feet and sharp claws Fragile earth Held together by Fog
Coquet Island is home to 25,000 pairs of Puffins during the summer. Each pair excavates or repairs a burrow where an egg is incubated by both parents in turn. The chick hatches after around 40 days and is then fed with sandeels by its parents until developed enough to leave the burrow, usually at night, head to the sea and fend for itself. After leaving the Island in August, our Puffins spend the Winter in the North Sea and North Atlantic. Those that evade Faeroese hunters and winter storms return in late March to begin the cycle again.
A profile of Chris and his work can be found at Newcastle University here.
View Twenty Six: Diane East and her triolet Coquet Island
Coquet Island's wild life land where the winds are always blowing and the surf is always flowing locals watching seals basking on the sands loving Coquet Island's wild life land. Terns hovering, puffins nesting, eggs hatching, boats sailing and the winds are always blowing and the surf is always flowing on Coquet Island's wild life land
Diane can be found on Facebook here.
View Twenty Seven: Retired fisherman Christopher Armstrong and A Confusion of Billies
In which a young Christopher, his dad and uncle head north of Coquet Island in search of fish.
View Twenty Eight: Max Shepherd and his digital artwork The Roseate Returns to Coquet Island
Max says: The roseate tern (sterna dougallii) is probably the rarest of breeding birds in the UK, raising its young almost exclusively on Coquet Island. In recent years avian flu has added further threat to the species.
This beautiful bird arrives at Coquet Island, in small numbers of course, in April/May each year. Most of the Coquet Island birds over-winter on the coast of west Africa, commencing their long journeys south in September.
This digital artwork is an attempt at a “bird’s eye” view (imagine you are a fellow migrant, looking across to your travelling companion).
View Twenty Nine: Phil Rowland and his composition Oyster Catching
Phil writes: I’m a composer, musician and sound artist, recording as Flockham Sisby. ‘Oyster Catching’ is a short, minimal piece named after those regular shoreline residents you will often see while gazing out to Coquet Island.
This piece is taken from the 2021 album ‘Ambler’, which can be streamed here.
View Thirty: Holly Edwards and her story Puffins
Holly is a frequent and enthusiastic visitor to Amble. In this short story, Flick and Paula discover the transformational power of the island and some of its inhabitants.
The air was thick with a cold, wet mist. It hung rather than fell, which Flick thought stopped it from being rain, although when the wind came off the sea it would soak her face like a salty slap. She wore only a thin mac over her fleece, having petulantly ignored Paula’s advice to bring a coat. It was early May, and the weather had been fine when they left the flat, and she had not believed the day could take such a miserable turn. She sat on her blue, gloveless fingers, and willed herself not to utter a sound of complaint.
They were waiting on the harbour for the boat to take them to the island. There was a rank smell in the air from the nearby lobster pots which suited her mood perfectly, as did the greyness of the day. Flick sat on a low mooring bollard, its cold metal a poor choice of seat. Paula, sensibly, was standing in the shelter of the nearby chip shop, smoking and not looking her way. They had not spoken in about half an hour, so long that to do so now would feel like a defeat. Flick’s scowl felt heavy and permanent, and each wet blast of air stoked her resentment further.
The worst of it all was the fact that this was why they were here. The whole holiday hung off this one event, a boat trip to Coquet Island to see the puffins. Paula had recalled a similar trip when she was a child, visiting her granny in the cheerful port town of Amble. Flick had been charmed by her memories: hot doughnuts from the van in the square, then catching the boat towards a sea bejewelled by puffins, finishing up with a fish supper with her legs dangling over the harbour wall, precisely where Flick now sat sulking. The smell of vinegar and frying carried on the sea air, creating the eerie impression that the past and present were fusing in the April chill.
They had been in Amble for three days, and the island had been ever present for Flick the whole time. On the taxi ride from the station, approaching from slightly north, it had seemed distant and pale, a charcoal smudge out at sea, but the next morning, the sun had shone, and viewed from the beach, it was as if the distance had shrunk, pulling the island closer to the shore. The lighthouse gleamed whitely, twinkling in the sun. To the naked eye it seemed deserted, but viewed through binoculars the sky around it was dotted with birds, terns, gulls and puffins, swirling around the island like an avian snow globe. It felt as though you could almost reach out and touch them, but as soon as the sun went in, the sea darkened and the island retreated, cold and inhospitable in the North Sea.
A little way up from where Flick sat perched a row of turnstones, crouched low on their stubby orange legs, each defiantly pointing its squat spike of a beak into the wind. Paula had wanted to get on the puffin tour the day before, when the weather was fine, but Flick had demurred, having notions that the boat ride was the highlight of the trip, and thus should be on the last day. Instead they had driven up the coast to Boulmer, from where Coquet Island sat tiny and indistinct on the horizon, with the faint outlines of distant wind turbines behind it like ghostly windmills. The tide had been out and the sand was dry in the spring heat. A couple of seals slept on the beach, and it had felt to Flick like the first day of a glorious summer.
The weather had held until the small hours of the morning, when the rain started, pelting the windows of the little flat they had rented, and keeping them both awake. Flick had felt short tempered all morning, snapping at Paula for no reason, and even though Paula had never said ‘I told you so’, it seemed to hang in the air like the sea fret, which had hidden the harbour when they emerged into the cold.
The mist had delayed the boat trip, which had not improved Flick’s mood, and the discovery that she had left her gloves back at the flat had only made matters worse. Fed up with trying to cheer her up, and used to Flick’s moods, Paula had beaten a tactical retreat. A small crowd had gathered on the quayside, and when they finally started to board, she had attempted a peace offering, pointing out a pair of Eider ducks bobbing along the surface of the freezing water.
‘They’re called cuddy ducks round here,’ she remarked. ‘Something to do with St Cuthbert I think.’ Flick shrugged, not yet ready to be friends, but there was something irresistibly charming about the birds. The male’s face had a severe black stripe, making him look stern and haughty compared to the kinder, mottled colouring of the female, who looked like she was always having to apologise for things her mate said at parties, or calm him down when he flew into a temper for no reason. She felt her mood towards Paula softening.
The water within the harbour was calm, but as soon as they were beyond the end of the pier and into the open sea, the boat pitched and rolled on the waves and the wind picked up. The island suddenly seemed very far away, and Flick wished again that she had brought a coat. The sea wind pierced right through her mac and grew colder and more insistent the further out to sea they got.
A little way from the shore and they started to notice the Arctic terns, little ticks in the sky, neater and more delicate than the herring gulls, who seemed almost grossly large in comparison. A few of the passengers brought their binoculars to their eyes to watch the terns, but most of those on board, like Flick, were scanning the ocean for the first sight of the puffins.
Just then Paula grabbed Flick’s shoulder and pointed to a patch of sea just up ahead of them. ‘There! I saw one!’ Flick peered, and thought she might have caught a glimpse, but the boat rolled back on a wave and whatever it was had gone. She almost cried out in frustration and the pointlessness of it all, sat shivering in an arctic wind waiting to see something which was just out of view, when suddenly she spotted, a mere two metres from the boat, floating carelessly on the pitching sea, a puffin, almost comically small, like a toy. As if seeing one cast a spell which caused the haze to lift, within seconds she was aware of another, and then another, and as the boat neared the island the sea and sky were full of them, their black bodies the perfect vehicle for their bright, showy beaks.
Each one looked exactly like she had always imagined, lifted out of picture books and placed in front of her. There was an artifice about them, like they were performing at being puffins, flapping their little wings like they had only just learned how to use them. Their colours and size made them seem to Flick like confectionary, and the island a sweet shop window, dotted with delicate, sugary snacks which, if she just reached out, she could take in her hand. Close up, the lighthouse, which from the shore seemed like a castle in the waves, was much more functional; towering over the other, less impressive buildings on the island, it had an industrial quality which you didn’t appreciate from the mainland. On the shoreline, a seal was balanced on a rock, lifting its head and tail in an impressive side plank.
But it was the puffins who were the stars of the show. Flick stared and stared, all thoughts of the cold forgotten, her numb fingers gripping her binoculars, sweeping obsessively over the island and the sea as if she was trying to look at every single bird. Each one seemed more delightful than the next; some had a beak full of sand eels, others were flapping like clockwork machines to and from the island. Their landings were chaotic, and more than once she saw a bird splash through the surface of the water, emerging seconds later looking mildly concussed. When they took off, despite their small size, they required a run up, whirring across the surface of the water for a few metres like a sea plane taking flight.
Eventually it was time to turn the boat around. Flick watched until the last puffin was out of sight, when she suddenly realised how cold she was. As she sat down shivering on the bench, Paula opened her coat and put her arm round her, pulling her into the warmth of her body.
‘That was incredible,’ whispered Flick. Paula dropped a kiss on her head, and the pair sat in happy silence as the boat returned to Amble, towards a steaming mound of vinegary chips and crisp battered fish, leaving the puffins and their island out at sea.
It has been a pleasure to exhibit these six views this week. We hope you have continued to enjoy them. The final six will follow next weekend. If you haven’t already subscribed, please consider doing so (it’s free!) and share this artistic collaboration with others.
Another great offering of creative views of the island. Thanks Allan x
More fascinating views. Thanks for including Phil’s composition - it’s great to have music.