These islands are one of the great bird places of the world. Counting the birds is near impossible, but the best estimates of the teeming cliffs are:-
18,000 guillemots, 11,000 razorbills, 6000 fulmars, 2000 kittiwakes, 1500 shags, a few hundred gulls, 26 great skuas, and a quarter million puffins, 2% of all the puffins in the world. The puffins come suddenly in from the open ocean where they have wintered in early May, and then, just as suddenly, in August, they are gone! Later thousands of geese fly in from their Arctic nesting grounds.