Visual observations, high speed movie sequences and image processing techniques have been used to examine unconfined vertical lifted turbulent diffusion flames issuing from precessing jet (PJ) nozzles. These techniques provide qualitative information about the dynamic motions in the flame and quantitative data on the size and number of flame structures, the celerity of those structures, flame dimensions, residence times and characteristic strain rates. The information is used to provide new insight into the flame stabilisation mechanism of, and combustion processes occurring in, a PJ flame and to enable a comparison with similar studies in free turbulent jet diffusion flames and pool fires. Large-scale structures are seen to form near to the base of the PJ flame and move downstream with a slow, nearly constant speed in a manner reminiscent of the puffing motions in a pool fire. The entrainment and mixing of these structures is such that the flame tip oscillates as the residual unburned mixture in each structure, becomes combustible and burns out rapidly as a single entity. It is proposed that the puffing motions in these unconfined flames are the result of a buoyant instability, which is analogous to that in a pool fire. However the buoyant puff structures are the result, nor the cause, of the stabilisation process. The high stability of the PJ flame, previously reported, is deduced to be related to the rapid decay in jet velocity and to the increase in entrainment which occurs in and upstream from the stabilisation region. The frequency of puffing is found to be uncorrelated with the frequency of precession. Global residence times and characteristic rates of shear are also measured and found to be reduced relative to those in a simple jet flame. The implications of the reduced shear on models of NOx generation in jet flames is discussed.