Watching the jumplings - guillies and razorbills fledge at High Cliff

Night has fallen over the island, the last of the light draining away below streamers of dark cloud.  I have just got back to the farm, after spending the evening at High Cliff with Tom, Ali and Jasper, watching the guillemot and razorbill chicks jumping into the sea.  The offspring of both species leap flightless from their ledges (they are referred to as 'jumplings') bouncing down the rocks to the waves below.  We watched from the shoreline, close to rafts of adult birds waiting for their own chicks to take the plunge.  The female stays on the ledge to coax the reluctant chick to the edge of cliff, while the male calls from the water below; the still air was filled with the cheeping of the young, and the encouraging calls of their parents.

When the chicks jump, they fall fast, seemingly impervious to heavy knocks against the cliff face, some even emerging unscathed from falls onto the black basalt boulders that line the shore here.  We watched as, one after another, they hit the water with a splash, surfaced and raced out into the choppy grey expanse of the bay, adults leaving the main group to collect them.

At either end of the cliff, a Great Black Backed gull watched proceedings balefully.  Scanning the water, I returned my gaze to one of these two, to find it shaking a helpless chick in its heavy bill.  The gull took a long time over its meal, initially unable to swallow it, spending time softening it up, before tipping the improbably large morsel straight down its gullet, to sit with a huge lump in its throat for several minutes.

The gulls were not the only predator at watch on the cliffs.  Peregrines have nested high up in one of the crevices in the rocks, and two gazed down from above, occasionally diving with breathtaking pace towards the water below - we did not see them make a catch, but undoubtedly it was only a matter of time before they would.

As evening turned to night we dragged ourselves away from the drama unfolding before us, making our way up the steep escarpment as the light at St Annes flashed across the bay, with the dark forms of puffins flitting through the air around us.  A good end to the day.