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Gallery: Atlantic Puffins (Shetland Isles, Scotland) - June 2019

There are some birds that only birders seem to be able to appreciate. And then there are some that turn everyone into birders.

How do you get someone to observe and like birds and birding? So many close friends and family have been birding with me and others, and most of them never truly "convert". So it is quite something to be out by the ocean, in a place where everyone - including those who've never used binoculars before - is suddenly on a twitch for one of the most recognisable birds of them all.

Puffins are extraordinary birds - they have very quirky and fascinating habits, are extremely curious, are clumsy on land and seemingly so in the air but capable of travelling huge distances, and they look quite like nothing else does.

But what I'll never forget is how the puffin had every single person around me transfixed and filled with the same enthusiasm that a birder shows when identifying and getting good views of a vagrant skulking LBJ!