‘Last chance saloon’: the scramble to save Dorset’s vanishing Purbeck puffins

In the 1950s, there were about 80 puffins nesting, but the number of pairs has dropped to three with no definitive sightings of chicks for years. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Reaching the vantage point is a tricky business.

First, there’s a hop across a fence into Scratch Arse quarry – the stone workers used to find it such a cramped space to work in that their backsides would bump into the rock face. Then, a tiptoe through the slopes of early spider orchids and wild cabbage before a dizzying scramble down to the edge of the cliff.