Birds of the Isle of May with Niall Campbell

Niall Campbell's fascinating talk took us to the Isle of May, 30 miles off the Forth coast and home to:

• 52,000 pairs of puffins
• Auks, 18,000 Guilliemots and 3,000 Razorbills
• 7,000 Herring Gulls
• 100 pairs of Greater Black Backed Gulls
• Manx Shearwaters and Stormy Petrel
• 2000 seal pups born in winter

Scotland's first Bird Observatory, the birding action on the island started thanks to the work of two redoubtable Fife ladies, Evelyn Babster and Leonora Rintoul. The Edinburgh Field Club worked from 1929 to establish the observatory, interrupted by a takeover for military operations during the second world war. Founding members who went to war and saw action as far afield as Normandy and Crete, some enduring life as POWs and spotting birds from their camps, re-grouped in 1946 and set up again on the Isle of May.

Niall himself was introduced to ornithology by a keen neighbour, and has enjoyed a lifelong association with the Isle of May. Volunteers and researchers are on the island from March to November every year, ringing and tracking birds which either use the island as a seasonal home for breeding, a stop-off on a longer migration, or drift there unintentionally in winds and weather.

Although Avian flu has impacted some of the bird populations recently, stormy high seas during nesting season and predation by other birds (there are no predatory mammals on the island) also account for bird losses. Some birds have adapted to avoid predation by "launching" their young out to sea at night.