(puffinus puffinus)
The Manx Shearwater is a summer visitor to Scotland. It nests in burrows in huge colonies - the colony on the island of Rhum is the biggest in the world with about 120,000 apparantly occupied sites. The adult birds only come ashore at night to feed the chick in the burrow. Away from the nesting colonies the Manx Shearwater can be recorded sometimes in huge numbers passing favoured headland watch points. Within the Clyde area, Cloch Point can sometimes have hundereds or over a thousand feeding on the sea. Many of these birds may have come from more distant colonies. They winter at sea in the Bay of Biscay area and further south.
These photographs were all taken in the Firth of Clyde, some on a boat trip to Ailsa Craig and the others from the Ardrossan-Brodick Isle of Arran ferry service.