Puffin with sand eels for its chick

If you’d like to see Sark’s most charismatic seabirds, the puffins, you need to get your skates on as the breeding season will soon be over. The puffins, along with their relatives the guillemots and razorbills, only come ashore for as long as it takes to rear their single chicks. At the moment all are busy hunting for sand eels and other small fish to feed their growing youngsters. All three species breed at L’Etac, the islet to the south of Sark, and guillemots and razorbills can be seen off the east and west coasts with the largest guillemot colony in the Channel Islands to be found on Les Autelet rock stacks. The chicks will leave home around the middle of July when they and their parents will once again head for the open ocean, only returning next spring to breed. Sark’s fulmars, shags, oystercatchers and gulls can be seen all year as can our resident peregrine falcons. The best way to see all of these wonderful birds is with local wildlife expert George Guille from his boat, the Non Pareil. George does round the island boat trips every day when the weather allows and has plenty of binoculars on board for getting a close up view of Sark’s seabirds.