The Met Office predicted that we’d be bathed in unblemished sunshine on our trip to North Berwick, so naturally it was raining when we got there. The Scottish weather, never one for understatement, also provided freezing fog and a wind that howled around us like angry monkeys. Scots have a very specific scientific name for this kind of meteorological event: we call it summer.
Despite the bleak conditions, my two young sons steadfastly refused to bring their jackets from the car. Whether this decision owed more to youthful optimism or oppositional defiance I couldn’t say, but I knew for certain that we were standing in the epicentre of a teachable moment. “You’ll regret this,” I told them. “No, we won’t,” they chorused. This, however, was one forecast that would prove entirely accurate. Because they did regret it. Very much so. Especially once I’d booked them on a boat trip.
We walked to the harbour through thick, Dickensian fog, which transformed every lamppost into a tall Victorian gent in a top-hat and every civic building into a lurking workhouse. The goosebumps on my arms had nothing to do with the eerie period piece unfolding around us, and everything to do with the bitter cold. Even still, optimism (decidedly not youthful in my case) prevailed in the form of a carrier bag containing swimming shorts and towels that swung pendulum-like in my grip. “It’s best to be prepared,” I told the kids, “But I really don’t think we’ll be taking a dip in the sea today.” I quickly added a mental rider as we boarded the boat: “And if we do, please let it be voluntary.”
We were heading out to Craigleith, a small island not far from the harbour. Now a bird colony, the island was once used to breed rabbits for food. Myxomatosis killed them in the 1950s, leaving sea birds to reclaim dominion. Rabbits were ‘mysteriously re-introduced’ to Craigleith in 2008, but that’s where the information trail begins and ends. How did they get there? I can’t help but imagine a plucky band of leporine adventurers commandeering a vessel and using it to return to their ancestral homeland.
In any case it was puffins, not rabbits, we’d paid to see. I realised as the boat motored off from the harbour that I’d never actually seen a puffin before. Only in children’s books, where they tend to talk, play football and go to school. Granted, I’m no naturalist, but I’ve always doubted the accuracy of those depictions.
I watched as the harbour behind us dissolved into the murk, followed by the rest of everything. Before long, all that remained of human civilisation was one small boat – encircled by an infinite sea of mist – and its small huddle of passengers, the two smallest among them loudly complaining about a lack of jackets.
I was just about to say ‘I told you so’ when a lantern lit up in the lighthouse of my brain. I reached inside the carrier bag and pulled out two towels. My kids snatched them, smiled, then snuggled them over their bodies like kaftans.
Suddenly, out of the murk ahead rose the hulking, mist-littered cliffs of Craigleith. Every crag and cranny of the imposing and majestic cliff-side was alive with birds. Chitters, caws and shrieks floated out to us on the waves of the wind. This was a teeming tower-block of life. And how! So much poop stained the rocks it looked like a giant had gone mad with a thousand buckets of white emulsion. Edged along the cliff-top above, silhouetted against the grey sky, was a line of birds, standing proud and erect like tribal elders come to greet or warn us.
It was cold on the boat, bracing even, but I was still surprised to hear my youngest son cry out: “Penguins!” I re-appraised the figures on the cliff-top and saw an unmistakable line of squat black bodies and white bellies. He was right. Penguins? In North Berwick? Had they come to visit the town’s famous Seabird Centre?
Had the rabbits given them a lift?
“What you’re seeing up there are guillemots,” laughed our guide over the microphone. “You’re right, though, they do look like penguins.”
I’d never even heard of guillemots. They sounded more like a lost house of Hogwarts than a living creature. But there they were, in all their tuxedo-ed glory, along with gulls, shags and kittiwakes. At the foot of the cliff was a seal, blobbed comfortably into a rocky recess.
But where were the stars of this seabird show? I’d no sooner thought it than a raft of puffins flapped through the retreating mist and swooped over the boat. They were nimble, graceful, and much smaller than I’d imagined. A child-like glee announced itself on my face in the form of an uncontrollable smile. As the puffins made pass after pass over our heads I felt like a character in Jurassic Park who’d just seen their first dinosaur.
Apt, because a line from the movie looped in my thoughts: “These creatures require our absence to survive, not our help.” I suddenly felt like an invader. I wanted to sink back into the mist and leave those beautiful creatures to enjoy their island paradise in peace.
But then I realised, listening to our guide, that they do need us. Each winter, when the puffins are out at sea, scores of human volunteers brave the elements and work tirelessly to rid the island of an invasive species called tree mallow – its spread exacerbated by the rabbits – that chokes the puffins’ burrows. This altruistic gesture, by a species better known for its own breed of invasive and destructive behaviour, helps the puffins not merely survive on Craigleith, but thrive.
As the boat pulled away I looked down at my kids, wrapped cosily in their fluffy towels. Above and behind us, I watched the puffins, oblivious to our species’ mercy, disappear around the far side of the island. And it all made sense. That’s all it takes. Small acts of consideration and compassion. Drip by drip. Wave by wave.
To keep balance.
To build a better and kinder future, for man and puffin alike.
