How to See and Photograph Puffins in the UK: 20 FAQs

Puffins are small seabirds from the auk family. There are three species of puffin: horned, tufted, and the one we have in the UK, the Atlantic puffin. These puffins are clearly recognisable by their sleek monochrome plumage, striking red and orange bill, and bright orange feet, a look which has earned them the nickname ‘sea parrots’. They only have this colouring in the summer; during winter their bill fades to grey.

Most people who’ve never seen a puffin in real life expect them to be about the size of a penguin or a large seagull, but puffins are actually much smaller. They typically measure about 28 cm tall and weigh less than 400 grams.

Although they are more built for diving and swimming, with short, stubby wings, puffins also spend a lot of time in the air. Puffins can fly up to about 55 mph (88 kmph) and beat their wings up to 400 times a minute!

Although they do look similar to penguins with their black and white feathers, puffins and penguins are quite different. For one thing, puffins can fly while penguins cannot!
Penguins and puffins are from two totally different species, and they live thousands of miles apart. Puffins live in the Northern Hemisphere, while penguins live south of the equator, from Ecuador all the way down to Antarctica.

Puffins spend most of their lives at sea, flying, swimming, or resting on the waves. During breeding season between April and August, they return to shore to lay their eggs and rear their chicks.
Puffins can be found across the east coast of Canada and the United States as well as around the western coast of Europe, especially the UK and Iceland – which is home to about 60% of the world’s puffins.

This is something puffins do have in common with many types of penguins. Most puffins will return to the same partner every year and some may stay together their whole lives – which could be as long as 20 years.

Puffins lay their eggs in burrows, which they either dig themselves or adapt from an old puffin or rabbit burrow. They line the back of the burrow with feathers and then the female lays a single egg. Both parents take turns to incubate the egg for about 35-45 days.
A puffin chick is called a puffling, and both parents take turns feeding the chick until it is ready to fly.

You’ll probably have seen the iconic images of an Atlantic puffin with a beak full of shiny silver fish: these are sand eels which are not actually eels but a type of fish. Puffins mainly eat small fish and zooplankton.
Puffins are unique among seabirds in having the ability to hold multiple fish in their bill at one time, instead of having to eat and then regurgitate them as most seabirds do.

The IUCN red list rates Atlantic puffins as ‘vulnerable’. Unfortunately their populations are in decline due to overfishing and pollution. However, there are still plenty of chances to see puffins in the UK – with an estimated half a million of them returning to British shores each year.

Puffins are very sociable, and hang out together in large groups. There are various collective terms for a group of puffins, including a colony, a puffinry, a circus, a gathering, or an improbability.

The top 10 places to see puffins in the UK are (in no particular order):
1/ Isle of May, East Lothian, Scotland
2/ Hermaness and Sumburgh Head, Shetland Islands, Scotland
3/ Westray and Papa Westray, Orkney, Scotland
4/ Fowlsheugh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
5/ Farne Islands, Northumberland, England
6/ Bempton Cliffs, Yorkshire, England
7/ Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, England
8/ Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales
9/ South Stack Cliffs, Anglesey, Wales
10/ Rathlin Island, County Antrim, Northern Ireland

During the winter puffins live at sea, so the only time you can see puffins in the UK is when they return to shore to breed. Breeding season is between April and mid-August, but if you want to see the most activity and get images of puffins with their beaks full of sand eels, you’ll need to visit in June or later when the pufflings have hatched.

Most puffin colonies are on cliffs or islands. Sometimes the colonies are on the UK mainland and in this case you will simply need to park your car and walk. Other places, such as the Isle of May, Skomer Island or the Farne Islands, require you to take a short boat trip.
Puffin season is quite short, and puffins are very popular. If you want to be sure of seeing them, it’s a good idea to book your trip in advance.
Wherever you go to see puffins in the UK, you will need to be mobile enough to navigate some uneven terrain and sometimes walk for a mile or two to reach the puffin colonies.

As always in the UK, layers are key! Most puffin colonies are in remote places with little shade or shelter, and the weather can be unpredictable. Wear comfortable trousers or leggings and trainers or boots for walking. Bring waterproofs, a hat and suncream.
You may want to sit on the ground to watch the puffins, so wear stuff that you don’t mind getting dirty. This isn’t really the place for a ballgown (yes, I’m looking at you, Instagram influencers!).

If you’ve booked to go and see puffins in the UK, and then the weather is bad, don’t worry. Yes you might get a little bit wet, but puffins are seabirds and are very used to bad weather, so they don’t mind the rain at all. Just make sure you pack a good waterproof jacket and a rain cover for your camera.

As with all wildlife photography, the number one thing to remember is that you are a visitor in their territory, and you should respect that. Don’t get too close, and try not to upset or disturb the birds.
Don’t try to feed or touch them, even if they come close!
At all times it’s vital to keep to the marked walkways, because sometimes the burrows are right next to the path, and they’re very fragile. If you step on one, you will almost certainly make it collapse and you could kill the puffin inside.

The old adage, ‘the best camera is the one you have on you’, is certainly true. In some places, you can get quite close to puffins, and you may be able to get some pretty cool photos with just an iphone. Here’s a video I took just with my iPhone at Skomer Island.

To get those lovely soft backgrounds you’ll need a wide aperture. The photo above was shot at f/3.2, but for photographing birds I’d normally recommend using between f/5.6 and f/8. This will still give you shallow depth of field at the long end of your lens, but you’ll have more of a fighting change of getting the focus spot on when the bird is moving.
For puffins in flight, a fast shutter speed of at least 1/500 and ideally more will help you freeze the puffin and prevent your images becoming blurry. If the puffins are just standing around, you can get away with slower, but I would always aim to keep a shutter speed of around 1/1000 anyway, in case the puffin suddenly does something surprising.
If you’re not sure about using your camera’s manual settings, now is the time to start practising! Or failing that, put your camera into ‘portrait’ mode for when the puffins are sitting still, and ‘sports’ mode for when they’re moving about.

I haven’t been everywhere on the list above, but all of them can be excellent places for seeing puffins in the UK. The puffins’ nesting locations and behaviour can vary from month to month and even hour by hour. One island can be amazing on one day and not so great the next.
To get the best results, I’d suggest trying to go when the weather is good, and later in the season when the chicks have hatched. When you get there, make sure you ask the guides about where to go – they will have the most up to date information about what the birds are doing.