The Farne Islands - Home to Puffins and More!

The Farne Islands are a group of rocky and remote islands about two miles off the Northumberland coast in the North Sea. The Islands are preserved as part of the National Trust and are home to many species of birds. Nesting seabirds include terns, puffins, guillemots, shags, eider ducks and kittiwakes (which look like sea gulls). Grey seals also rest on the rocks of the islands.

We took a boat tour (along with a lot of other tourists!) to the islands, which lasted about two and a half hours. We saw tons of birds and seals and got to get out and walk on Staple Island to see a lot of nesting birds close-up, including puffins! I was surprised to learn that puffins nest underground. They dig burrows in the turf and pop in and out of them with their beaks full of fish. The island was covered with birds and it was a truly unique, noisy, and smelly, experience.
Puffins at the top of the rocky cliffs on one of the Farne Islands. Look closely to see a puffin taking a leap off the rock!
Grey seals. The tour boat got quite close to the rocks where the seals were and some dove into the water while others just raised their eyebrows at us.
Once off the boat on Staple Island we were able to see the masses of nesting birds up close. The island was roped off so you could only walk in a certain area to protect the birds (and likely to protect the visitors from falling off the cliffs!). The birds you see the most of are the guillemots, which look like penguins in their tuxedo black and white coloring, and which lay their pear-shaped eggs directly on the high rocks.
Matt gets some footage of the puffins. Note the puffin flying overhead!
Puffins around their turf burrows. As we stood and watched we could see them come in and out of their burrows, which were small holes in the ground.
Matt got this great close-up of a strutting puffin. They are pretty funny looking walking around on land, and after getting a running start and leaping off the ground they make a loud fluttering noise when they fly!
Cormorants about to feed their hungry chicks. The cormorants only nest on a few of the islands, in big groups.
Kittiwakes nesting on outcroppings in the cliffs. Look closely to see the little grey chick in the nest.
Looking out back towards the mainland from Staple Island. The specks you see are all flying birds, most of them puffins! The puffins only nest on islands with turf.
Our boat was the "Glad Tidings II". There was such a huge tide (the tide is always very large here, however with the summer solstice on the way the tides were extreme that day) that the captain had all the passengers pile into the front covered area of the boat to try to lift the props, and had to make two tries to get the boat into the harbor. He did succeed, finally, and we made our way back up the stairs and onto the wharf. On to our next adventure!

The Coast

After seeing Lindisfarne, we drove south and saw more of the coast. We walked on the beach near Bamburgh castle, where there are high dunes to walk through before you get to the sea. It reminded us of the National Seashore near Cape Canaveral in Florida. Later the same day we took another coastal walk to see Dunstanburgh Castle, which is situated up on a high cliff above the sea. We stopped near Seahouses (a kitchy coastal town where everyone is on holiday) to spend the night and planned to take a boat trip the next morning to see the Farne Islands.
Walking along the coast to Dunstanburgh Castle (we did this walk too late in the day to get into the castle).
This lamb was enjoying his prime seaside grazing real estate with a view of the castle.
The castle overlooks high cliffs where the sea crashes on rocks. We saw birds swooping down to catch fish. The drop must have been more than 100 feet. Here Matt is standing at the edge looking down.Where we stayed at Seahouses.

Our UK Road Trip Begins - Lindisfarne

We set off from Vindolanda after assuring everyone we would be back to say bye before we flew to the US, and Matt drove us northeast to the edge of the North Sea. (I was not about to attempt the "wrong side" of the road driving of which Matt has become an expert while he has been here.) We were headed to Holy Island to see the Lindisfarne priory and castle. Holy Island, or just Lindisfarne as the locals call it, is an island reached by a tidal causeway, so you must study the tide tables and be sure to cross only within the hours when it is safe, or you risk being swept away by very strong tidal currents. Just a few weeks ago a car was caught in the middle and its passengers had to be airlifted out via helicopter.The Lindisfarne Priory ruins

The Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island was started by St. Aidan who came from Iona in the 11th century, but the current priory was begun by St. Cuthbert who decided to be a monk as a young man after having a vision of St. Aidan being lifted to heaven. St. Cuthbert went on to spread Christianity in Britain to Northumberland and southward. His bones now rest in Durham cathedral, which we visited later in our trip.The ruins of the priory are dramatic and the island is beautiful. We were very lucky to have sunny, breezy weather and no rain. For the first time I was warm and we had to stop on our walk to the castle to peel off extra socks and layers of clothing!St. Aidan says "thanks for stopping by my remote island priory! Y'all come back now!"

The Lindisfarne Castle is on high on a hill at the end of the island. To get there we walked around the coast and saw the many ships which are no longer in use and have been turned upside down and made into storage buildings. The castle is impressive and the inside is furnished and filled with an assortment of antiques and antiquities that reminded me of home. The castle was used as a holiday home for a wealthy family in the 1700s. The Lindisfarne CastleOur view looking down at Holy Island and the priory ruins from the top of the castle.

Tullie House, Carlisle

On two of the afternoons when our digging was rained out we took mini road trips to some nearby Northumberland towns. Matt took me to see the Hexham Abbey one day and we went to Carlisle another day. Tullie House is the museum in Carlisle with a combination of historical, artistic and natural history exhibits. We were especially interested in the Roman displays, where they have a lot of inscribed altars and some interactive exhibits. It was a good place to hang out on a rainy afternoon.Saddle up! Matt rides as a Roman (no reins!)

Update on Rainy Dig Week

The last week of my digging was too waterlogged to go much more in depth than what Katie and I did on the first day of the dig week. The rain was such that we only got one other day in for digging. We removed topsoil on a different area because the original bit we were excavating was too soggy and muddy to do any archaeology. So we found some bits of pottery and shoveled some dirt. One of the days was a complete washout. The other two days we stayed and helped wash pottery found earlier in the season and mark it ready to be taken down to the lab. A few samian stamps were discovered as was a bit of amphorae that had a painted decoration on part. The pictures I think say it all.








Katie and I did go to Tullie House Museum in nearby Carlisle on one of the days we were not able to dig. The museum has a collection of Roman material but also displays on the geology and nature of the north west of England and a display on the Border Reivers of the 1300-1600's. We also went for a walk in the drizzly rain and saw the last bit of standing remains of Hadrian's Wall. The walk takes you over the River Irthing on a very well done foot bridge built in 1999. Before that you had to back track and walk extra couple of miles to pick up the Wall walk again. The next two pictures show part of the Roman bridge that would have crossed the River Irthing with a road on the top. Katie is standing next to what is left of the east bridge abutment. The west abutment is under grazing land as the river has moved further west cutting into the cliff that the Wall would have come down. The last picture is taken from the top of the cliff mentioned above and looks east over the flood plain and the Wall as it comes down to meet the east bridge abutment.

Washed Out

Area B under water
The wall trench in Area A under water

Day two of Katie and I's week has been rained out. I took a couple of pictures to show how bad the trenches have filled up. Both Justin and Andy were amazed at the amount of water. I guess the trenches have never filled up so much in just a day. The area Katie and I are excavating is under at least 8 inches of water. Some sections from each excavation area have four feet of water which will be difficult to drain and keep drained as it continues to rain the rest of today and tomorrow.

We did find a few interesting things on our first day of digging. We found a ceramic gaming counter and a large fragment of a DEA NUTRIX statuette but no shoes, yet. The statue is a goddess mother figure that is seated in a wicker chair and has a basket of produce or a child in her arms. The statuette is most likely part of a house shrine instead of a temple. The full height would probably be around ten inches. I hope we find more of it and are able to see the whole thing.
Dea Nutrix statuette fragment

And now for Katie's blog comments!
So, yesterday was my first day of digging, and it was warm and sunny for the most part (it rained while we had lunch). Matt introduced me to all of the archaeologists he has been working with these last two months and I got to see some of the areas I had only been seeing here in photos on the blog. What Matt did not mention about the ceramic statuette fragment is that he identified it immediately when we pulled it out of the trench. I was holding a muddy piece of what looked like pottery and noticed that it was a funky shape, and Matt said, oh that is at Dea Nutrix statuette! He has got this archeology thing figured out!

Today after going to Vindolanda and checking out the entire fort underwater we went into Hexham and found me some waterproof hiking boots and wellies, as my sneakers were already soaked through just from walking around the site. The amount of rain we have gotten is amazing, but it seems to be slacking off now, so hopefully the rest of the week will be dry and we can get back to digging. Stay tuned!
Katie

Katie's Here!

Katie has finally arrived. Her flights went well although the four hour layover in Heathrow was a little taxing. We start digging tomorrow so she doesn't have much time to rest up. At least it's easy digging- no topsoil to grind through.

Hi everyone! I am happy to be here and I will keep you updated on this my first week, and Matt's last week, of digging at Vindolanda. Perhaps this year I will find a shoe! We will do some more posts this week, then next week we head out on our road trip to see parts of the coast and we might not have Internet every day.

So watch this space!
Katie