A Person with Ornithophobia's Worst Nightmare

A B-I-G apology to my loyal readers as I have really dropped the ball with the blog recently.  We have been living a pretty normal life over here---nothing noteworthy to blog about.  Lots of outings with friends, Jeff has been extremely busy at work, and I have been finishing up two of my literacy courses.  One more to go!  It is really hard to believe it is May now and we can say, "See you next month" to our friends & family in the states, but it will also be sad to say, "See you later" to friends that we've made along our journey.  I still can't believe that we have been here 16 months and starting our 17th! It feels like yesterday we were arriving at our home with luggage in hand and not a clue what the next year would bring.  I still hear those fire alarms ringing in my head and some of the crazy things we went through in January 2014.  19 posts just in January alone! 

But enough about the reflection part of this email...let me tell you about our latest trip!

We finally had a bank holiday weekend, so a three day weekend helped us find the time to get away and do some local traveling.  We headed to a spot I have had on my radar since we moved here.  The Farne Islands is about 4 hours away, and it is all about wildlife...especially birds (hint's the ornithophobia--fear of birds title) I definitely was thinking about the Alfred Hitchock movie, Birds a few times while on our adventure. But the Farne Islands caught my eye, as the puffin colony breeds about this time of year.  Puffins are one of my favorites!

We got into the Seahouses village, where almost everyone was there to enjoy the boat ride over to the islands.  We had a picnic in the car, and then headed down to the dock.  The boat ride was about 20 minutes to the first island. Motion sickness hit me again, but I was able to overcome it this time.  The waves were bigger than I expected, and we were still in a pretty small boat with about 20 other people.  We arrived up close to the first island, the Inner Farne Island, and I was in awe.  There were THOUSANDS of birds on this island.  There are apparently over 23 species living on both of the islands, but I wouldn't be able to tell you the bird type.  So sorry, no details about that in this post!   It was pretty amazing to see that many birds just sitting on the edge of the cliffs, hanging out, grooming themselves, or flying around.  They pretty much stayed to themselves, and it wasn't like they were bothering us at all. 

This was the type of boat we boat on...only with less covered space. 

 So. Many. Birds.

Not sure the type of bird...but there were tons of them!

The boat continued on to the Staple Island. This is the island we tried to stop on, but for some reason the water was too rough and they weren't letting anyone off at this island for the day.  We still were able to see all these different kinds of birds up close.  It was funny to hear people around us say, "Oh that's a _______.  And there's a ________." They were definitely more knowledgeable when it came to bird types, and were putting Jeff and I's bird knowledge to shame.  Ha, like we had any!   The puffins were my favorite, as they were so cute! I love penguins, and they remind me of them, other than their bright orange nose!  For once I can say, the pictures actually do them justice!

We were heading around the islands, and we were able to see quite a few seals.  They were all lined on the beach enjoying the sun (or lack there of).  But the funny part was, that as I was taking pictures of them lying on the beach, a few would pop up out of the water and photobomb my pictures.  The joke was on me, because by the time I tried to get a picture of the seals in the water, they would go back underwater.  It was just so neat to see them up close in nature and not in a zoo!  We made a final loop, and we were able to see the beautiful lighthouse from afar as well.

 Just lounging around

 Just poppin' their heads in/out of the water.

We finally headed back to the Inner Island where we were able to get off the boat and see the birds up close.  The website said to wear a hat in case of them pooping on you or dive bombing your head because you are too close to their nests.  I didn't see anything like that while I was there, but we both represented our St. Louis Cardinal hats.  Not that it is a surprise that Jeff wears his hat daily...

 
The island was really neat, we were able to see quite a few different types of birds.  We got really close to many of them in their nests, and were able to get some amazing pictures.  Jeff and I walked around the island for the hour, taking pictures of the birds and enjoying the semi-nice day.  The rain held off...thank goodness!

We got back in the boat, and it was a rocky ride back! Lots of big waves were crashing into the boat, which meant we were getting wet as well! But soon enough we were back in the dock area and on our way.  We spent the night in Newcastle upon Tyne, which looked like a cool city.  We didn't do much exploring past finding a place for dinner.  We were exhausted from the long day, so we didn't take advantage of the sights within the city.  Overall, we had a great little mini-getaway, and I was so glad I could check off this adventure off of our to-visit list.

 

I videotaped part of the boat ride back. Now, you can understand how many up/down moments we had!  Hope you don't get seasick!

On to the next adventure...