Another one from my recent Isle of May trip. I also have to give credit to my kids for the name. We ‘adopted’ a puffin with the Scottish Seabird Centre last year and I asked my children what we should call him. (That’s not a gender bias, by the way, they discussed it at length and decided that it was a him. Knowing them it was probably pretty random.) Anyway, after days of deliberation they settled on Clifford Splash Herringsbane. Seemed fair to me. Roll on a year, and when they saw the photo they announced that this must be Mr Herringsbane himself.
Clifford Splash Herringsbane landed on the damp basalt of the seaward cliffs, puffing hard. This latest expedition, his third of the day, had been particularly tough. He’d been mobbed three times on his way back to land.
The first, a small group of six young fulmars, had been easy to avoid. They were inexperienced youths and no match for Clifford’s cunning aerobatics.
With the second group he was not so fortunate. They were a full flock of twenty adult fulmars in their prime. He’d jinked and dodged as well as any puffin ever had. He’d even made two of them crash into each other. No small feat and he was proud of it. They say pride comes before a fall. As he sped away from the crash, sure that he was safe again, the largest gull swooped in and stole the fish out of his mouth. It hadn’t been delicate about it, barging straight through him and knocking him into the water. No great problem for him. After all, he’d have to dive in to catch more fish. That wasn’t the point, though. It was the indignity of it all.
Luckily, fish had been abundant and he was quickly able to make another catch. He took to the air again, certain that he’d make it home this time. He was nearly right. Even with his heavy load of fish, he was within gliding range of the cliffs below his burrow when the next attack came. It was half-hearted, the trio of herring gulls were already fat from an afternoon of successful piracy. They swooped down on Clifford more out of greed than any desire for his fish. Still, Clifford was already tired from his earlier encounters and it had taken his last reserves to evade the slashing, snatching beaks.
Rest completed, Clifford turned to make the short sprint to home and froze. Not far away was a group of those strange flightless creatures. The nearest had some kind of black contraption pressed to its face. He’d seen these creatures before, of course — they were constant visitors to this island. Whatever the black object was, it seemed to make them happy, and they had never done anything more threatening than click frantically. Perhaps they were trying to communicate. A fascinating riddle, but one for another time. Clifford had a family to feed.
He flapped wearily to his burrow. Mrs Herringsbane bustled out, followed by their hungry puffling. Clifford passed his load of fish off to his daughter then turned and rubbed beaks with his mate. She crooned happily as their beaks clacked together. Clifford trilled his joy back. In that moment his world was complete.
The spell was broken when the little one, having devoured the fish, grumbled hungrily. Clifford sighed and turned back toward the sea.
Brandon Lim 