Great Northern Diver in the kettle off Inner Farne (Ciaran Hatsell)

Thursday 27th October comments: The winds (and sea!) finally eased allowing a return to 'normality' on the Farnes. I'm not sure if the Farnes will ever be classified as 'normal', but it was as normal as we could have wished. The team were active from the start, as we headed to the seal colonies to continue our work counting and marking the pups. Due to visitor work (it was a busy day) we completed two island counts and will finish the operation tomorrow morning.

It was a good day with 115 born on the South Wamses since our last visit and I suspect we'll have over 300 pups on the islands, but will bring you a full account tomorrow. On the bird front, we had a lingering Stock Dove (a rarity out here - first record since 2008), a vocal Richard's Pipit (our second this year) and a very showy Great Northern Diver just off Inner Farne. Otherwise all well on the islands and tomorrow will be just as busy. North Wamses here we come.