What can I see?

There are certain animals we can guarantee on every tour - puffins, highland cows, seals, guillemots, razorbills. Other animals require more work, patience, luck, and organisation such as otters, whales, red deer, owls or eagles (sorry no red squirrels, we don’t have enough trees in Caithness!) If you have a dream sighting we can use local knowledge to maximise your chances of getting this, but it often requires your time and flexibility - we can wait up to three hours and not see a whale, or our local Otter may have picked the previous night to move her cubs to one of her other dens, as they frequently do. That said if you have a special request, please get in touch! We will see what we can do.

Why can’t I book day time puffin tours?

If you have a very limited amount of time in Caithness and can only do a day tour, contact us to see if we can fit you in.

We offer day time tours on Mondays and Sundays, but this year we are focusing our time on Sunset Tours for two very good reasons. The first is that while puffins are very busy fishing during the day, reducing sightings to as low as single figures, they gather in the evenings in much larger numbers to socialise. The difference between day and sunset tours can be the difference between seeing 2 or 200 puffins. The second reason is that this business is a one person operation, and with other commitments it makes sense to provide tours at times that give the most customer satisfaction. Many animals are much more active in the evening, including otters, deer and birds of prey, which also make the evening tours more enriching.

How do the tours work?

We tend to meet at Thurso Harbour, but are often able to meet you at your accomodation if it is in East Caithness - the exception to this is if there is a tour immediately preceeding yours, so please check as it may reduce your tour time while we travel to you, or you may be a bit too far out. We then begin the tour of the area, providing all the information you ever wanted to know and more about Scottish wildlife and the local history - How long does a puffin live? What do you mean the beak FALLS off?! Seals do WHAT?! How many killer whales live in Scotland year round? Why are there all of these ruins? Who lives in that Castle? And so on.

Depending on what tour you’ve booked, and what wildlife is doing at what time of year, we may make several stops along the way - our Grey Seal colony with our 300kg chunky friends, Our harbour seal colony with their smaller, 100kg cousins, whose babies we can watch learn to swim and sing from June - July, or we may stop to feed a biscuit to our local highland cows. The main destination is Duncansby Stacks, our seabird colony and beautiful, history rich vista. Here you can meet our regular puffins; Mariah, Elton, Astrid, Hiccup, Bascia, Noriko, Kayleigh, Penelope, King Puffin, Queenie, Lazy Susan, Sarah, Tina Turner, and all of their friends. This section includes a 1 hour walk through the puffin colony where you will learn all about these fascinating birds and all of their cousins, including thousands of guillemots and razorbills. You have about a 15% chance of seeing whales or dolphins during these tours based on last years rates.

If your tour is a sunset tour, we may stop at an Otter Holt on the way home time permitting, and watch them emerge in the fading light to hunt, or watch bats, owls and deer flash in the headlights on the way home. It doesn’t get dark during Caithness Summers, so you will enjoy golden lights and a seemingly endless sunset. You will hear stories of viking raids, highland clearances and tragic loss within the royal family that played out in the landscape you are travelling past, and learn how Caithness came to be what it is today. We drop you back for what we are sure will be a well earned dram or a great night’s sleep.

How close will I get to a puffin?

Short answer - up to 4 metres. Why? Because our puffins nest on the edges of cliffs and getting any closer is…not smart. Or covered by our insurance. Please bring your grappling hooks and £5000 for the fine for disturbing nesting seabirds in your own time. A fulmar will also likely puke on you defensively. You may have seen videos online of puffins walking around people’s feet - these are most likely island puffins. On Islands like Staffa, May, Handa or the Orkneys, there are no natural ground predators such as weasels, foxes, badgers etc and they will happily nest in above ground burrows like rabbits, which allow humans to get closer. Mainland puffins like ours however are extremely vulnerable to these predators and therefore build their burrows within the sheer cliff faces themselves, as very few land predators are stupid or capable enough to access a burrow like this. Smart birds eh?

How close can I get to other animals?

We encourage responsible and safe wildlife tourism and so let the wildlife decide what they’re comfortable with, maintaining a respectful distance of 100 yards from resting seals and provide high powered binoculars to all guests - that said, they do tend to pop up under your feet all the time. Seals spend up to 11 months out of the year pregnant and stress can cause them to miscarry - with 40% of all of the world’s grey seal population here in the UK, we have a responsibility to protect them. Touching of any animal on the tour is never permitted, but the joy of the experience is watching a wild animal being itself, independent of humans.

Can I bring my dog?

Yes! However, we must be notified 24 hours in advance if you intend to do so to prepare our doggy resting area within the vehicles. Please note that the size of your dog is also useful information - our carrying capacity reduces from 5 persons to 3 persons for larger dogs as we provide a comfortable resting space in the rear of the vehicle, while smaller dogs may be kept on your laps and maintain a 5 person capacity. Water and treats can be made available on requests.

Can I bring my own car / use my motorhome?

Yes! We understand that you may want to use your car for a variety of reasons - tricky car seats, nervous pets, accessibility. Simply drop us a line and I will happily provide the tour within your own vehicle.

Do you provide car seats?

Unfortunately not - the sherr range and types of car seats required to provide this option is simply not possible for us. If you would like to use your own car seat, or your own vehicle, please let us know.

Why are your tours so expensive?

We offer concessionary rates to OAPS, students, single parent households and benefits claimants. We also offer DIY tours for just £10, available to download from our website.

After insurance, fuel, and vehicle payments, one full price ticket hires an ecologist with 15 years of experience for less than minimum wage hourly. This is before other work done; for example, I am not currently being paid to write this FAQ page. There is also website design, maintenance, marketing, booking management, administration, phone calls, emails, the time spent scouting otter holts and reading tide charts and whale sighting reports to maximise the odds of a rare sighting for guests, running taxes, and the purgatory that is being on hold with companies house and HMRC.

The tickets are priced such that I charge the minimum possible that allows me to run this business - at a lower price, it would not be financially feasible and I would simply not be able to run the business! If you have questions about whether you may book at concessionary rates, please just drop us a line.

Why aren’t you a boat tour?

There a number of reasons we, after receiving training as powerboat operators and attempting to get a vessel up and running, have decided not to run boat tours. The main ones however are that the Pentland Firth has some of the strongest currents in the world, and we do not have enough good sailing days on this side of Caithness to make this financially feasible. The cost of running a boat and lack of availability of storage berths for a vessel has also prevented us from running this service at an affordable price. We are happy to recommend other boat tours in Caithness on request!