Razorbill at Dunstanburgh Head

This morning we went across to Lindisfarne again to see what we missed yesterday. Yesterdays shot of the priory was taken from the outside, so today we visited the priory and the visitor center. We then visited Parish Church of St. Mary's. The church stands on the site of the wooden church built by St. Aidan in 635 AD, which during the Anglo-Saxon period was replaced by a small stone church. After an excellent ploughmans lunch in one of the pubs, we went for a stroll round the village, then left the island and went to Dunstanburgh Castle , which is located on the coast atop a cliff. The castle is in ruins and managed by English Heritage. On the cliffs just north of the castle were hundreds of nesting seabirds, mainly kittiwakes and razorbills.

The Razorbill is a member of the Auk family. Their breeding habitat is islands, rocky shores and cliffs on northern Atlantic coasts, in eastern North America as far south as Maine, and in western Europe from northwestern Russia to northern France. These birds forage for food by swimming underwater. They catch their prey and eat them underwater. They can stay underwater for about one minute before surfacing. They mainly eat fish, like sandeels, herring and capelin, also some crustaceans and marine worms. Razorbills usually nest in large colonies and lay their eggs on bare rock or ground. Each partner will forage, then come home to take over with caring for the egg or young. When feeding their young, they will hold several fish in their bill and fly back to the nesting cliff. They may well fly more than 100 km out to sea to feed during egg incubation, but when feeding the young, they forage closer to the nesting grounds, some dozen kilometers away, and often in shallower water.

I could have spent much longer watching them, but the place was closing. We had dinner in a neighboring village, and then went to the harbour back at Seahouses and watched the changing light over the sea as the sun set.