Runde Island

Runde 

Runde is joined by a bridge to several other bits of land joined by other bridges until an express ferry seacat connects to our base in Alesund. Our bus driver today was Yorgen.

At a bus stop: ling heather

My idea was to take the bird sight-seeing boat round the island, but the various trips were all booked. So we had to walk from the camera position to the upland in the distance. The hardest bit was the sudden climb: like up the Nut at Stanley, Tasmania.

Good view once I got up there and looked back.

Up among the bog cotton, unseen from the boat, the Great Skuas defend their territory against walkers. The whoosh of the wings is powerful.

There was not a great variety of birds. Apart from gannets, that white streak of a colony on the cliff,

these were the best.....

This puffin, with a beakful of sand eels which it never ate in all that time, sat about for ages before....

taking off for a burrow.

A family. We met many intrepid kids up there. This is about 300 metres up.

Meanwhile, one of the boats has cormorants to look at.