Leonie,
Tricky - Puffins are mostly all gone from the breeding sites at the end of July
with just a very few remaining into the first week of August (this is true for
the Pembrokeshire Islands - it may be slightly different for other sites)
Second problem with Puffins is that they are along remote coasts and islands.
Probably the most accessible ones are at Bempton Cliffs in North Yorkshire -
this is an RSPB reserve and the website says they are there till mid-August so
you might be lucky!!
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/p/puffin/index.aspx The
Guillemots and Razorbills are also gone by August
I am struggling to think of short or one-day bird tours - most are a week long.
And of course August is a particularly low point for birdwatching (not so bad
for mammals) as breeding has finished and many small birds and ducks are in
moult and very hard to see. One possibility would be Heatherlea in Scotland -
they run various tours all through the summer and they do short breaks.
http://www.heatherlea.co.uk/ (The large Scottish birds such as Eagle and
Capercaillie are still visible in August!)
Companies like Naturetrek and Limosa also do short breaks but probably not at
the right time of the year for you.
I just tried doing a web search on "birding short breaks UK" and I did get some
hits - also "wildlife short breaks UK". It would be worth using a UK search
site such as http://uk.yahoo.com/ or http://isearch.avg.com/
For a day out you could try birdingpals http://birdingpal.org/.
Also have a look at Fatbirder - this is the England page but there is also one
for Wales and Scotland. http://www.fatbirder.com/links_geo/europe/england.html
I can't offhand think of a nice friendly forum like birding-aus which you could
post your request on - I steer clear of UK birding sites as they are generally
so acrimonious and competitive and very twitching oriented!!.
Can't think of anything else to suggest at present!!
Rosemary
Rosemary Royle, Wales, UK
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