Arnoud Quanjer Wildlife Photography

The Farne Islands are a group of islands off the coast of Northumberland, England. There are, depending on the tide, between 15 and 20 or more islands which are scattered about 2.5–7.5 km distant from the mainland, divided into two groups, the Inner Group and the Outer Group. The main islands in the Inner Group are Inner Farne, Knoxes Reef and the East and West Wideopens (all joined together on very low tides) and (somewhat separated) the Megstone; the main islands in the Outer Group are Staple Island, the Brownsman, North and South Wamses, Big Harcar and the Longstone. The two groups are separated by Staple Sound.

Between April and early August the Farne Islands are host to up to 100,000 birds which breed on the islands. The twenty or so species that breed on the Farne Islands include Atlantic Puffin, Arctic, Common and Sandwich tern, Razorbill and guillemot, Eider duck, Shag and Oystercatcher. A visit to the Farne Island to photograph puffins had been on my bucket list for years and in May 2011 I got the chance to include a visit to the islands in a trip to the North of England. I booked two whole day trips to the islands with Billy Shiel and I was not disappointed. On a full day trip you go to both Staple Island and Inner Farne and you spend around two hours on each island. During the trip the boat stops at a grey seal colony and it circles a number of the islands so you can see and take pictures of birds nesting on the cliffs. I can highly recommend the full day trip offered by Billy Shiel.

Photography and equipment

Photographic opportunities on both Staple Island and Inner Farne are good to excellent.There are lots of places where you can get very close to the birds and due to the limit of people who are allowed on the islands each day it's not overcrowded. The downside to the island is that the number of types of pictures you can get is limited. What I mean by this is that the surroundings are kind of dull (either rock or grass) so most pictures will be of a bird with the sea, sky or a rock as background. I found it difficult to take images that I hadn't already seen on the Internet. But don't get me wrong it's an awesome place for photography and I will be going back there.

It could be down to my style of photogarphy but I almost exclusively used my 500mm f/4 with and without 1.4x converter for taking pictures. For the puffins in flight I mainly used the 500mm wiith the 1.4x converter. A lot of people told me that you can get very close to the puffins so you can use shorter lenses and while that is true I found that I preferred to use my 500mm. I brought the full scala of lenses with me (17-40, 24-70, 70-200, 300 and 500) but I could have saved myself and my back the trouble. The birds are small (much smaller then I expected) and I found that on most occasions I needed the 500mm to get images which wouldn't need massive cropping. I don't do a lot of wide angle or panorama shots so if that's your style of photography then your experience might be different. I'd recommend using a tripod and gimball for flying puffins. The buggers are very small and extremely fast and to get sharp image of them in flight a steady tripod is a must.

Staple Island

The first island that you visit during the whole day trip is Staple Island. This island is a small rocky island which is known for its prolific breeding colonies of Atlantic puffins, Razorbills and Kittiwakes. Photographing on this island can be tricky if you're there on a sunny day as on a lot of the photographic sites are looking into the sun. On a sunny day I'd recommend that you focus on the Western edge of the island (which is the side the boat docks on). On that side of the island there are a couple of good spots to get pictures of puffins flyiong out to sea. As most of them are flying out to sea in that area they won't have fish in their beaks but you can still get some good shots of them flying past at eye level. I've found that the best place on Staple Island to get close-up images of puffins with fish in their beaks is at the end of the stairway where the boat docks. To the left of the top of the stairway a lot of puffins land with fish in their beaks. Judging by the amount of bird poo on the rocks it's a very popular place for them to sit. On a sunny day the sun is in the perfect position to get some close-ups of puffins in good light.

Should you catch Staple Island on a cloudy day then the Western side of the island remains a good place for photography but as you won't have the sun backlighting the birds on the Eastern side of the island you can get some good images there. In fact the best place in my opinion for puffin photography is on the Eastern side of Staple Island. There is a very small area there where you can take images of puffins with a black background (see photo gallery) as the rocks in the background are black. The area where you can get the black rocks as background is only a few metres wide so it's tricky to find and it's difficult to explain where to go, but if you walk down the last stairway from the boat landing then you're more or less looking straight at the spot. Most people will turn right at the bottom of that staircase as the 'main' viewing and breeding area is to the right.

Inner Farne

The second island that you'll go to on the whole day tour is Inner Farne. This island houses a breeding colonies of Artic Terns who in breeding season will dive bomb you so make sure you bring a hat with you! The terns seem to concentrate their breeding near the boat landing so you only get divebombed when you enter or leave the island, the rest of the island is safe ;-) On this island you can get nice shots of the terns and eider ducks and of course the puffins. When I was there the puffins were mobbed by seagulls as soon as they landed with fish so as soon as they landed they made a bee-line for their burrows which meant that it was near impossible to get shots of them on the ground with fish in their beaks. Getting pictures of flying puffins with fish in their beaks was surprisingly easy though as almost all of the puffins flying to the island had fish in their beaks. On both of my visits to Inner Farne I concentrated on getting images of flying puffins and I got some cracking good shots (see photo gallery). The best place on the island for getting shots of flying puffins in my opinion is the viewing platform on the Western side of the island. The best place to set up a tripod would be on the right side of the platform. You can track the puffins as the come in from the sea and you can pan from left to right there withe the sun behind you.