Two small silhouettes are floating on the tide. With apparent casualness, these “Bangor penguins”, as they’re known locally, dip their heads underwater to scan for butterfish. Their sleek bodies and monochrome plumage lend a little resemblance to their distantly related namesake, but the black guillemot is in fact an Arctic species of auk. Over a century ago, its presence here was sufficiently unusual for the Irish Naturalist science journal to remark that it was “a most extraordinary thing that such wild birds … should nest in such frequented places”.
