Puffin Power

PUFFIN POWER

I had seen puffins on wildlife programmes on the TV. I knew them as the logo of that well-known book publisher. But I had never seen them for real. Now I was out on the Irish sea, taking a puffin spotting boat trip just off the West Wales coast.

The coastline slid by. Craggy cliffs loomed high, between azure sea and cyan sky. Stony outcrops, millennia old, the rocks of ages. Sculpted by the mightiest of all the elements, the sea, capable of quenching fire and consuming land. Lurching, lapping, loving. Carving, crumbling, cracking rock, until...................

Solid grey faces seemed to emerge from this extraordinary edifice, all seeing, all knowing, waiting. What tales could these wise visages tell? Stories of sea, sun and surf. Of denizens of the deep, of the eternal power and the ultimate destruction of life.

And there they were, amongst the crags. Thousands upon thousands of puffins.

Puffin Brilliant!

Puffins parading on parapets, popping in and out of puffin palaces. Puffin parents protecting pufflings from the pernicious predators which circled above. Paddling puffins below, buoyant, buffeted, beautiful. Puffins to the left of me, puffins to the right of me. Puffins zooming overhead.

Puffin Power!

Short, stubby, stunted puffin wings, flapping in unison propelling puffins into hyper drive. Somnolent black eyes, and banded beak pointed dead ahead. Oversized orange feet tucked in neatly underneath a snowy belly. Whizzing hither and yon above the waves, with ne'er a puffin prang.

PUFFIN PERFECT!

Reviews

[alanwgraham]

Puffin perfect! Well written with plenty of puffin humour!
Good to get a bit of a laugh here.
Cheers and well done,
Alan

[Xander Lewis]

I really enjoyed reading this, it just got better as I read through. My favourite line was 'Puffin parents protecting pufflings from the pernicious predators which circled above', I think that was very clever use of words. I also didn't know that there were puffins in Wales, so I learned something new. Would love to see more stuff like this.

[Alice]

Thanks for the review. Wrote this while on holiday in Fishguard, West Wales, for the third year running, but saw dolphins this time. I live in South Wales. I entered it in a Flash coompetition, didn't get anywhere though.