Overview
You cannot land on Puffin Island, and that is rather the point. BirdWatch Ireland keeps it closed, which is a large part of why the seabirds are here in the numbers they are. The island – Oileán na gCánóg, the island of the puffins, once recorded as Inishfearglin – is a steep, uninhabited rock off the Iveragh Peninsula, separated from the mainland near Portmagee by Puffin Sound, a channel about 250 metres wide. At 138 acres it is small, and almost every scrap of it is given over to nesting birds.
The way to see it is from the water. Licensed operators run boat trips out of Portmagee through the summer that circle the cliffs and let you watch the birds without setting foot ashore.
The seabirds
The puffins are the draw, and the thing to know is that they are only here for part of the year: they arrive in late March and are mostly gone by early August, so a visit outside those months misses them entirely. They nest in burrows dug into the grassy upper slopes. BirdWatch Ireland counts them in the thousands of pairs rather than any exact figure.
The bigger colony, though, belongs to the Manx shearwater. Also present in thousands of pairs, these are night birds – they spend the day far out at sea and come ashore only after dark, in noisy rafts, to burrows honeycombed through the summits. European storm petrels nest the same way. On the sheer cliffs below, guillemots, razorbills and kittiwakes take the ledges.
Geography and landscape
The island runs about 1.5 km long and 0.7 km wide, rising steeply from the sea; sources disagree on quite how high, putting the top somewhere between 145 and 213 metres. The shape of the ground sorts the birds: the steep, rocky slopes suit the puffins, while the gentler summits are riddled with shearwater and petrel burrows – which is exactly why walking on it does damage, and why it is off-limits.
Getting out to the island
Landing permission is granted only to researchers, and BirdWatch Ireland withholds it from everyone else, since a boot through a burrow roof can undo a nesting season. For visitors, a boat is the way. Tours run from Portmagee through the breeding season; as an example, Skellig Coast Adventures runs a 1.5-hour Kerry Cliffs and Puffin tour from Portmagee Marina, staying onboard throughout, priced around €35 for adults, €20 for under-12s and €95 for a family at the time of writing. Sea kayakers also paddle the route from Portmagee or Valentia Island.
Conservation
BirdWatch Ireland (once the Irish Wildbird Conservancy) has held the island as a reserve since the early 1980s, and the work is mostly monitoring, habitat protection and keeping ground predators off – rats and mink can wreck burrow-nesting colonies. There are signs of old human habitation on the island as well, enough to have drawn archaeological interest, though the birds have long since had the place to themselves. Operators keep their distance from the cliffs, and drones and flash are discouraged near the colonies.
Practical information
- Best time to visit: late April to early August, with May and June the busiest for feeding and chicks.
- What to bring: binoculars, and waterproof, layered clothing – the Atlantic wind is sharp even in summer.
- Booking: book Portmagee tours ahead in peak season.
- Sea conditions: trips depend on the weather and can be rough or cancelled, so keep the plan flexible.
Nearby
A boat trip here slots easily into a wider run along the Skellig Coast:
- The Skellig Islands – the monastic rocks further out, and the Star Wars filming location.
- Valentia Island – across the bridge from Portmagee, with the Bray Head loop walk and old lighthouses.
- Portmagee village – a small fishing harbour with a few pubs, among them The Moorings, handy for a meal after the boat.
Go out in the morning or the late afternoon, when the light is soft and the birds are working, and time the trip for May or June if the puffins are what you have come for.