The first of five back-to-back Deluxe Puffin trips last summer started exactly how you’d hope.
Birds moving well, puffins coming in with capelin, and it didn’t take long before everyone settled into it. You could feel the group starting to lock in—picking up flight lines, timing things a bit better with each pass.
We were right in the middle of that when Hugh Smith called it out.
“Merlin!”
I remember pulling off a puffin mid-track and just trying to find it. By the time I did, it was already on us. Fast, low, and coming straight in.
Bright sky behind it, backlit, no time to think. If you start messing with exposure at that point, it’s over.
I didn’t touch anything.
Exposure was already set for the light falling on the subject. I had checked the histogram earlier and knew where I was. So when it came through, it was just track and shoot.
One quick moment—wings up, feet down—and then it was gone.
That was it.
We all kind of reset, picked the puffins back up, and carried on as if nothing happened. Another bird came in with a bill full of capelin a few seconds later, and the rhythm was right back.
But that one sticks with you a bit.
Not because it was a Merlin—but because there was no time to fix anything if it wasn’t right already.
There’s one room left for this year’s Deluxe Atlantic Puffin Workshop. We’ll be based on a remote lighthouse island, with hundreds of puffins flying right over us and landing just 200 metres from where we’re staying.
If that kind of experience has been on your list, this is your chance.
