An excursion to Bempton Cliffs

 After a gap of a year and a half where I have woefully neglected this blog, I have decided to write a post.

It was more a case of having a lot of photos I didn't know what to do with, so I decided this might be an appropriate repository. I am not really a bird photographer, but as my partner Alan enjoys a bit of bird watching, I armed myself with a long lens a little while ago so that I could take a few snaps for him.

We went to Bempton Cliffs in South Yorkshire at the beginning of May when the bird breeding season was getting under way. This is the place to go if you want to renew your faith in the natural world. The birds cover every available nook and cranny of the cliffs and the air is loud with their raucous cries. It is carefully managed by the RSPB with a good car park and visitor centre, so not exactly wild, but I don't think the birds care about that.

The cliffs are home to a large gannet colony. Always impressive birds which were flying past in squadrons like pelicans. There are also guillemots, razorbills (so smart in their black and white suits and horny beaks), fulmars, kittiwakes and we saw a very few rather lonely puffins. There are also a smattering of jackdaws and pigeons and we saw linnets and a barn owl on the field behind the cliff. 

As a guide, the gannets are the large birds with yellow heads. The guillemots are the dark brown and white ones, with straight black bills and the razorbills are the black and white ones with large, black puffin like bills. The fulmars are grey and white gull like birds with a strange beak which has a tube on the top with nasal passages known as a tube nose. They have a gland behind this nose which concentrates salt which is expelled through the tube. They were once heavily predated by man for their eggs. This in spite of the fact that their main form of defence is the vomiting up of an oily foul smelling substance over their aggressor. The kittiwake is a gull with a white body, grey back to the wings with a black stripe on the wing. The kittiwake is listed as endangered and the fulmar as a cause for concern.

Here is a selection of pictures of these birds. I'll end with the linnet and barn owl.









Gathering grass for the nest



The nests have quantities of plastic in them, mainly fishing net

Here follows a sequence where a mating gannet was surprised to find a third party trying to get in on the act. The invader was repulsed and the couple got back together again.









































Location: RSPB Bempton Cliffs, Cliff Ln, Bempton, Bridlington YO15 1JF, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 11th June - we go ashore in Village Bay

Image
  We had had a good night anchored just off shore in Village Bay on Hirta,  St Kilda's main island. When we woke up the sky was clear and the visibility good and I felt very proud of being able to make a panorama of the shore from the slightly rolling boat. There was one other small yacht tied up in the bay. The other yacht in the bay with Stac Levenish in the background In the panorama, if you enlarge the picture, you can see the bay, the sandy shore, with the military buildings at the front of the shoreline, the old village spread out some way behind and then a jumble of walls and stones going off into the distance. However by the time we had had breakfast and got out in the dinghy to go on land a fog had descended limiting our views of the hills. It seemed good though to explore in the conditions that must prevail on St Kilda most of the time! As we climbed the jetty I noticed some kelp in the water that looked just like a fish skeleton. St Kilda had been inhabited by man since
Read more

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 8th June - we go aboard in Oban

Image
  We have never booked a holiday a year in advance before so the anticipation leading up to our sea trip on yacht Zuza was immense. We had arrived in Oban the night before and at the appointed hour (2.00pm) we wheeled all our luggage, far too much with cameras, a laptop, walking boots and Alan's, new to him, yachting trousers and jacket recently purchased from eBay, down the jetty and onto the boat. The good ship Zuza is a Bermudan cutter rig ship built in 1998 as an expedition boat for the Royal Geographical Society. She is 22m long and weighs a  goodly 42 tonnes. When we were on her there were 3 crew and 8 guests who occupied two twin bunk cabins and two double en suite ones. I was too late to get a double cabin so we were in a twin. With a saloon and a covered wheel house she was perfect to take us all the way to St Kilda and then around some of the Hebrides. Bear with me while I introduce everyone. Neil was the Captain, Erin the First Mate, and Grosia the chef. Neil was very la
Read more

A weekend in the Dingle, a damp drive and exciting lichen

Image
We woke to a drizzle the day after our 'Tom Crean experience'. We had not enlisted for the Tom Crean 19 mile endurance walk, and luckily that was sold out anyway, and given the weather would not have been pleasant by any yardstick. Instead we did what any old codger would do under the circumstances and go for a drive. The Slea Head Drive to be more precise and part of what the Dingle tourist board call the 'Wild Atlantic Way'. Wet and wild that particular Saturday. It is manners to drive clockwise around this circular route as the road is very narrow and cars coming the other way, as a couple did, cause all the traffic to snarl up. We started in Dingle where we stopped briefly by the harbour, before continuing until we shortly came to a museum. It was a private, commercial sort of venture, run by an American and called the Celtic and Prehistory Museum. And it was actually very interesting, containing some animal skeletons and stone axes and other such artefacts. Th
Read more

The Ancient Agora of Athens

Image
  After our trip to the seaside we thought we should examine more of the ancient sites of Athens. So we walked to the district of Monasteriki, the very busy touristic area, where behind iron railings lies the Greek Agora. This occupies a large area and was originally a place where the Athenians senate met, as well as holding the market, places for socialising, temples and craftsmen's workshops. We started by walking up the hill to the Temple of Hephaestus which overlooks the Agora. This temple was completed around 430BC and as Hephaestus was the patron god of metal work and craftsmanship it was built on a very fitting site, although it was used as church from the 7th century AD to 1833. We passed workmen tidying as we walked. From the top we got very good views over Athens. Directly under the temple lies the site of the ancient Bouleuterion which was the senate house where political discussion took place and the Metroon where the state archives were kept. The boule was a sort of pa
Read more