A trip to Lundy Island

I (you’re reading the thoughts of Joe) have always been a niche, or peculiar in my focus areas. Perhaps a small turning point for me were a series of books published in the late 1980’s called simply “Gone Forever” by the publisher Crestwood House. Always up for more reading material that focused on extinct species, young Joe snapped them up. One in particular had an interesting bird on the cover resembling a penguin, and it was apparently called a “great auk”. Speaking of “penguins” the great auk is actually the species the word “penguin” or more accurately “Pen Gwyn” was coined to describe.

I really enjoyed that book, and thought the species more so, or at least as interesting as a dodo or a thylacine - but there was practically no information, models etc available about it. I even wrote a letter to the Field Museum in Chicago asking if they had any pictures they could share (in those pre-internet days). The unavailability of the great auk made it all the more interesting to me, and ironically that paralleled what happened in real life as it faced extinction.

I never lost interest through the years, but other things may have taken priority . A new Godzilla film, the latest dinosaur discovery, but eventually, at about the age of 13 I took a trip to Chicago and although my family was more focused on Sue the tyrannosaurus - I wouldn’t leave without seeing a bird I had only ever seen in a book years prior. I walked past a model dodo, and other birds, until I came to an enormous - glass encased - seabird exhibit, and there sat a great auk. Box ticked, but somehow that made the need to know more and see more worse.

Later, the internet came about but never proved to be a decent resource about the bird I had unintentionally fallen in love with, apparently there weren’t many out there with the fascination and what you could find I already knew. I could never figure out why and the injustice that everyone always seemed mad for penguins made it all the more ironic to me.

Two decades would pass and although it was always among my favourite extinct creatures, there was never anything new to see or read that I could find; recently extinct animals kind of have that limitation. But then came Amazon and with it new books.

If you like extinct birds, Errol Fuller is the name of an author you have probably come across or should get acquainted with. So many good books - in particular a veritable picture atlas of every mounted great auk currently known. But we’ll get to perhaps the best writer in a bit.

Aside from Amazon, another life event which came at me was I moved to the UK. Awesome.

The United Kingdom is one of the areas of the world the great auk inhabited and like many natural landmarks I have eventually gotten round to visiting - Lundy Island specifically is the closest local where the birds lived to where I am based and I finally got to go with the wonderful and patient Dawn who also entered my life after moving to the UK.

Obviously you’ll know if you’re reading this, the next stage was creating a business centred around extinct animals. Dave at Nova studios was good enough to work with us in producing a great auk skull, and a fully articulated skeleton. The first scientifically accurate skeleton which will be available to purchase in the world of a great auk.

Our later quest, our adventure to Lundy as it were (had to tie it back to the title!) was inspired by a book written by Michael Blencowe who goes by @thesussexnaturalist on Instagram (follow him - great content). The book is titled “Gone: A search for what remains of the world’s extinct creatures”. In his book, Michael explores the places and artifacts tied to recently extinct animals and where in the world you can go to be “close to them”. That last phrase I feel like I need to elaborate on… like, it you want to feel the presence of their ghosts or that kind of vibe. It is a really amazing book and for the price Amazon UK has it listed for here will you just go ahead and buy it!?

In any event, Lundy is a great visit. No wifi to speak of, no signal - if you were to take a teenager there I am pretty sure they would die. It is a gorgeous island with seabirds, beautiful walks, ocean views - and you can even rent accommodation and stay if you need a retreat. I should mention that to get to Lundy, an island, you need to book passage on a charming old-school ferry and that the shop features one shop, and one pub. It is awesome - and if you get the chance, the old lighthouse rarely has anyone make the climb to the top and sit in the chairs which let you view the whole island.

So back to great auks and Lundy. In his book, Michael details an old map of Lundy, and some documentation which shows about when and where great auks were located on Lundy before they went extinct. It was a decent walk, but at the Northern end of the island, quite near to the new lighthouse, there is an outcropping of rocks that were once known as “Bird Island” where the “large birds” nested. We went to Lundy, with a great auk skull replica in hand and trekked to the spot where best to catch a glimpse of one of the last refuges of our mascot bird.

I (Joe) and deathly afraid of heights, so in the end when pictures needed taking close to the rocky edge of a cliff, I was rescued by the very brave (and gorgeous) Dawn who snapped the picture of our great auk skull Dave at Nova sculpted and this became our product image on our store page.

It felt great to get our skeletal relic to Lundy, and to visit one of the last places the bird was present on this Earth. But once you have the skeleton, why not go further?

Dave at Nova introduced us to Matt at Ancient Era artistry, and at long last I am ticking a box for my younger self. Having seen multiple taxidermies of the great auk in life, I am getting my life-sized reconstruction of the original penguin - and we’re going to share it with all of you.

So now, in this age of internet and wonderful things, I have come full circle to correct a part of my formative years - that the great auk was not accessible. Well, now it is. You can have a life-sized replica skull, skeleton or life-reconstruction with 16k resolution accuracy.

I want everyone to know about the original pen gwyn.

Thanks for reading everyone!