The Puffin Rally
Using Wildlife Photography to understand our oceans.
We’ve spent the last few summers in Iceland helping on a research expedition known as ‘The Puffin Rally’.
Our mission: Photograph the birds across 13 different colonies. Our photographs were then used to determine the prey characteristics of all the colonies.
A full account of our ‘23 adventure in Iceland was published as the cover feature in the May 2024 edition of BBC Wildlife Magazine.
We filmed our ‘22 Puffin Rally and made an eight-part series.
It’s available to watch, for free, on our YouTube channel.
Examining a Puffling
Enjoying the Arctic midnight sun on Grimséy
Björg ascending a black sand dune to access a colony
Midnight sun portrait
Harry defending himself against Skuas
Black-tailed Godwit
Rodrigo bracing against the spray during a boat ride
Black guillemots feed their chick a Scorpion fish
Björg kitted out for an adventure
Rodrigo operating an infra-red burrow camera
Gyrfalcon
Our tractor-taxi, ferrying us over a black sand desert
Björg and Erpur having a well deserved rest onboard a boat
Puffin with a bill full of sandeels
Chubby puffin portrait
Attending the funeral of a researcher, killed in the field by a plane crash
Rodrigo marking a burrow as 'checked'
The main team
Example of the research photos we were tasked with capturing
The Puffarazzi photographers!
Ascending the uninhabited Lundey island in search of puffins
Hitching a ride with the Icelandic Search & Rescue crew
All aboard the Search & Rescue vessel
Acrobatic puffin in flight
A puffin hunter catches a bird, using carcasses as decoys
A hunter's haul
Harry capturing research images
An abandoned puffin egg
Erpur ascending the island of Drangey
Witnessing a volcanic eruption, sat on an inactive volcano
Skua on the prowl
Skua
Late evening puffins
Black guillemot on the island of Vigur
Edwin exploring Ingólfshöfði
Ascending Lundey island, meeting the locals
Edwin (front), volcano (behind)
Golden plover adult
Golden plover chick
Adult puffin vs puffling comparison
Puffin smiling for a portrait
Snow bunting in breeding plumage
Puffin wing positions in-flight
Red-necked phalaropes
The researchers doing ... research
Researchers on the uninhabited island of Papey
Approaching Lundey island
The researchers' toolkit