MY passion for this quaint little sea bird led me from the chalk cliffs of the Yorkshire Coast to an island on the Arctic Circle. I saw plenty of puffins. Now, years later, I share concern that in places along the East Coast the population of this sea bird is plummeting.

The cause may be connected with the warming of the North Sea, with over-fishing and with a sharp decline in a species of fish known as the sand eel. Happily, the fish still abound in the sea off the Farnes, a scattering of Northumbrian islets, where puffins are profuse, despite the heavy rains of last season that flooded many of the burrows.

The puffins that nest at Bempton in Yorkshire form the most southerly colony by the North Sea. Unlike the puffins that burrow into soft ground, our Yorkshire puffins choose cracks and crannies in the lofty white cliffs. A blue-ganseyed fisherman I met at Flamborough, where the bird was known as Pilot, recalled putting his hand into a hole being used by a nesting puffin. He was looking for an egg. All he got for his pains was a nip from the sitting bird's beak. "And what a nip; it made my eyes water."

Today, the birds nesting at Bempton – the prime Yorkshire area – are in a RSPB reserve, complete with visitor centre. When I first knew this coastal reach, local men with long hempen ropes were cliff-climmin', seeking birds eggs for sale. A bird protection law saved the seabird colonies.

I recorded my first puffin at Bempton. It looked like a bumble bee against the sea-glare. A small, rotund body was supported by short wings which were being beaten so quickly they blurred to my sight. From its triangular bill dangled several sand eels. The puffin entered a crevice in the rock where its solitary young would be waiting for a meal.

Another puffin posed for me. The beak – tinted red, yellow and blue – was fantastic, like a false nose donned by a clown. What I began to call puffinitis – a craving for the sight of these podgy little seabirds in their various haunts – led me to the Farnes and, in Scotland, to Bass Rock and St Abbs Head. At Noss, I played hide and seek with a puffin from behind a wall.

Joining a work party of the National Trust for Scotland I spent a fortnight at remote St Kilda, where – still puffin crazy – I was taken by lightweight craft, courtesy of the Army, across a puffin-speckled Village Bay to land in an area within winking distant of my favourite bird. In those days, the local pub, intended mainly for the Army, was called Puff Inn.

One evening, in Iceland, several of us chartered a small plane to take us to the Westmann Islands to gaze at ranks of puffins. Another time, boarding a small boat with powerful outboard engines I was whisked from the north coast of Iceland across the near reaches of the Arctic Ocean to Puffin Island which, tinted red, rose from a sea that was as calm as the proverbial millpond.

Another highlight was a flight in a light aircraft from Akureyri to the island of Grimsey, which is traversed by the Arctic Circle. I sat beside a Welsh opera singer who, looking into the evening murk, and at water dribbling from a wing strut of the aircraft, said: "If this is high summer, God help them in winter."

The RSPB is inviting local families to sail with them into the world of seabirds on board an Aren't Birds Brilliant! cruise. The
RSPB's East Yorkshire Local Group is running the cruise on board the Yorkshire Belle from Bridlington Harbour on Saturday, July 19, at
4pm. Cost: Adult £12, child, £6, family ticket £30 (two adults and two children under 14). Further details, please telephone 01262 850959.