‘They will often give you a wee nip’: rangers count puffins on Farne Islands

‘The one species everyone can identify is a puffin,’ says zoologist Dr Richard Bevan. ‘They are iconic, I think.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

It may well be one of the least hi-tech nature counts in the UK, and involves rangers sticking their arms blindly down a hole knowing there will be one of five outcomes: they will feel either a puffin egg, a puffling, excrement, nothing at all – or the annoyed reaction of a puffin as a giant hand suddenly enters its home.

“They will quite often give you a wee nip,” said Harriet Reid, an area ranger at the National Trust, smiling. “I can show you a couple of scars … it does hurt. But I’m used to it.”