Visit to RSPB Bempton Cliffs : 7th August 2013

Visit to RSPB Bempton Cliffs : 7th August 2013

On the second day of our visit to Yorkshire we spent the morning at Spurn before driving up to Flamborough where we were staying at the North Star Hotel. We checked in, had a quick sandwich and a drink and headed off to the RSPB site at Bempton Cliffs where we hoped to see some of the nesting sea birds we had not seen at South Stack on Anglesey – principally Gannets and Kittiwakes, the latter of which seemed to have left the cliffs at South Stack already when we visited in the middle of July. We also hoped to see Fulmars and possibly Skuas as they had been reported to be around quite a bit the last few days. Anyway, we had some hits and some misses.

The dominant birds at Bempton were undoubtedly the Kittiwakes of which there were several thousand. I estimated about 20,000 but it could have been more. It is always a pleasure to see these lovely birds but my own “special” bird in these colonies is the Gannet so it was to their nests down at “Staple Newk” the furthest observation point to the right of the reserve visitor centre. There th Gannets were nesting all over the rocks and cliff sides. I thought that there were perhaps a few less than last year and certainly there were not as many to be seen at the very top of the cliffs where, last year, it had been possiblt to get good close photographs of them. An additional bonus was that, contrary to what we had heard, there were still a few Puffind coming and going to nests. We could not see where the nests were but presumably there was some earth for burrows under the cliff we were standing on because you could see a few suddenly whizzing out to sea and coming back as small black dots with a dash of silver at the front where their sand eels were glinting in the bright sunlight.

There were lots of Rock Doves and Jackdaws and Starlings around and at the visitor centre we saw a Dunnock and lots of Tree Sparrows. We walked along the cliff path all the way to the other end at “Jubilee Corner” and there we got really nice views of Gannets and Kittiwakes nesting and I took the oppportunity of the bright sunlight to try using my new Swarovski digiscoping adaptor to get some practice in with the new kit that so far has been a bit underused.

Unfortunately the Guillemots and Razorbills had all already left so we had missed them but we didn’t feel too bad about that because we had seen so many at South Stack the previous month. What had eluded us, however, were the Fulmars and Skuas. Still, we felt we had had a good day and because we had been in the blazing sun for so long we felt it was time to return to the hotel, have a drink and get cleaned up in time for dinner.

Bird Sightings : RSPB Bempton Cliffs