Images of salmon hurling themselves upriver,or a sea eagle diving for fish may be commonplace on TV documentaries, but it is possible to see such incredible sights for yourself, and in the UKPuffin love lasts a lifetime,and when mating couples arrive at their nesting site each year, they renew their pair bond with a heart-swelling display of “billing”, and fondly touching and rubbing their colourful bills together. Less romantic teamwork ensues,as they busily build nests in which to raise their pufflings, gathering grass in their beaks and scuttling into their burrows. Sometimes fights demolish out between neighbours, and the resulting scrap can see puffins opening their mouths wide to threaten each other and even locking beaks in battle in a hilltop tussle. “It’s exciting to watch them arrive at the sea cliffs and launch their courtship,” says Mull’s RSPB officer David Sexton. “The aroma, cacophony and blur of a million seabird wings is an unforgettable assault on the senses.”Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk