Puffins of the Inner Hebrides – a photo essay

Photographer Murdo MacLeod travelled on a converted fishing boat to the Treshnish Isles and Staffa in the Inner Hebrides to admire puffin breeding colonies, where the birds nest in burrows on the edge of cliffs

In Scotland, the much-loved puffin - or fachach in Gaelic - nests on the Treshnish Isles and Staffa in the Inner Hebrides. Outside of the breeding season they spend most of their lives at sea, resting on the waves when not swimming.

This distinctive seabird, famous for its stout patterned beak, flies thousands of miles in migration, can dive to more than 60 metres and live for more than 40 years.