A wreck of puffins

Sadly a large number of birds have washed up along the shoreline this week. Many of them, like this one, are puffins which we usually don't see much beyond the Farne Islands.

Apparently hundreds of dead birds have been washed ashore along the east coast, in an area stretching from Aberdeenshire to Northumberland, and now here on the iron coast.

It is thought the birds may have been unable to feed due to storms at sea and thousands of puffins may have died of starvation, due to severe weather conditions we have had recently.

The death of such large numbers of seabirds in a single incident is known as a "wreck".