Hi folks! Oh my gosh it's not been months and months since I wrote something - something must be wrong! (Actually - yes it has, as I wrote this back in May but forgot to ever hit the Publish button... it seems I'm just as useless as ever after all....) On this occasion it's due a computer model that I keep messing up so this time instead of setting it off and going home for the evening (which I would very much like to do because it's after 6pm and I'd really quite like to eat some dinner), I'm going to sit here until it finishes and I know for sure that it's worked. In the mean time, might as well share my recent weekend activities and give you an overview of some of our amazing UK wildlife.
Twice in the last month, a uni friend and I headed over to RSPB Bempton Cliffs on the Yorkshire coast, just north of Bridlington. It's not too far from York, but annoyingly just far enough that without a car it's a full day trip by train, or I'd probably be there most evenings. It's exactly what it sounds like: a cliff that is also a reserve managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and there are just thousands of seabirds there. One of the posters estimates there are about half a million breeding there each year, which for a stretch of cliff that can only be a mile or two long, that's pretty impressive!
Unfortunately, we underestimated just how powerful the wind chill would be, so despite it being late spring/early summer, we absolutely froze the first time! Wasn't all bad though - never a bad excuse for a hot chocolate... Second time we wore more layers and ended up getting way too hot, but such is the way of the world. Or at least the UK anyway. Recommendation - if you go, take a windproof!
I can't recommend this place enough. I went once in more wintry conditions and then most of the birds were away on their migration, so you do need to time it right, but now in late May it is absolutely fantastic. Let me introduce you to some of my feathered friends:
These handsome fellows have to be one of my favourite sights on the UK coastline. They manage to be both incredibly elegant but also look clumpy and dorkish at the same time. They're also one of the easiest to photograph, being very large, relatively slow flying in comparison to some of the others on this list, and quite willing to come fairly close to where you're standing at the top of the cliffs. Unfortunately this makes them almost too easy to photograph and if you're as shutter-happy as I am, this creates some pretty mega deleting jobs when you get home in the evening!
Often skimming low over the water during flight, I have many times annoyed my partner by pointing out a tiny white speck far out to sea zooming over the surface of the waves that he can barely even see... but I find them exciting! Far more exciting however is when it gets to fishing time. When gannets hunt they will fly high above the water, before suddenly twisting in the air into a dive with a terrifying speed, hitting the water like an arrow, and woe betide any fish under the surface that is within reach of their bill. When a whole group is diving together, it's an incredible spectacle. How they ever learn to dive with sufficient accuracy to not hit one another swimming around under the water I'll never know!
Puffins have to be one of the World's favourite birds, with their colourful beaks, enormous feet, and tendency to nest amongst the flowers atop the sea cliffs, so providing wonderful backdrops to their photographs. I love them because they just have so much character, waddling along with their giant orange flippers flapping at each step, but then appear so tender when greeting their mates. I first had the privilege of seeing these birds when in Shetland a few years back, and I have adored them ever since. They certainly don't make photography easy though, as they zoom toward and away from the cliffs with a speed that makes keeping them in shot very tricky, let alone in focus! Their photographic advantage however, is their apparent complete lack of fear of a human more than about 10 m away. So long as you make no sudden movements or loud noises, they'll happily go about their day with you relatively close by, offering wonderful opportunities to attempt to capture their lives. Bempton did not have QUITE so many puffins as I'd heard, but still plenty enough for me to spend many hours watching and photographing them if time allowed. Maybe sometime I'll go back with a tent and camp nearby so I can watch them for the entire day.
This is not a bird I was expecting to see during our visit, and was quite amazed when told that the UK is the only place where barn owls will also hunt during the day, and not just at night as I believed. Again a favourite of many, the barn owl is probably the owl most of us could recognise most easily. It was just wonderful to stand and watch this one hunting over the fields, flying back and forth, sometimes hovering, and occasionally dropping like a stone into the long grass, though whether any of these attacks actually led to a meal for him we couldn't see. Unlike the puffins, the barn owl was much more wary of humans, and I was pleased to see everyone following Bempton's rules and remaining on the designated paths, rather than trying to approach him closer. One of the greatest threats to many wildlife areas is not the fear of development or conversion to farmland, but of people who enjoy being in nature not respecting it properly and going where they shouldn't in order to get a better look. Watch from a distance, and usually you'll get a better view as the animals are able to safely ignore you without fear that you might try to harm them or their offspring.
Darker than the guillemots, razorbills can be recognised by a heavy black beak with a white stripe along the top. They can dive down to about 100 m to catch fish, with males and females potentially showing some level of specialisation in their hunting techniques, as they will consistently bring different food items back to the nest for their chicks (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Razorbill/overview). At about 20 days old, razorbill chicks experience one of the most harrowing entries to the big wide world that I can imagine (with the possible exceptions of baby turtles doing their mad dash for the ocean while being attacked from every angle, or giraffes practically skydiving from the lofty heights of their mothers). Without any flying ability, or even the developed anatomy that might enable flight yet, they leap from their nests to the water hundreds of feet below. Some never make it to the sea, with unfortunately placed rocks killing them before they ever reach the water, and some hit the water itself so hard that it is remarkable more don't break their necks then even if they have managed to evade danger on the way down. However, enough do make it to the bottom in a sufficiently slow (if not in any way controlled) manner to begin their lives as the next generation of razorbills.
Fulmars hold a very special place in my heart, as one of the first seabirds that I learned from my Grandad (a self-proclaimed bird fanatic, who moved to the most remote inhabited island in the UK in order to watch the birds every day) how to recognise. The fulmars also gave us a wonderful display, wheeling around us and soaring back and forth along the cliffs, when we scattered Grandad's ashes a couple of years ago, and I always think of him when I see them. These photos are actually from our visit to Shetland when we returned him to his beloved Foula.
I have to admit, much to the horror of old Grandad if he can hear me whenever I'm at the coast, that I have a total mental-block about Kittiwakes. Despite their very helpful calls of "kit-ti-waaake" as they fly past, and their appearance being quite different from other common British gulls, I still every time go "ooh what's that one?!". Not sure if my friend was amused or frustrated by the number of kittiwakes I asked him to identify during our visits to Bempton... It's not that I don't know what a kittiwake looks like, more that I forget that they exist so when I see one, I run through a list of options in my head and can't identify them because kittiwake rarely makes it onto the list... I'm not sure if that's better or worse! Having said that, they are quite distinctive, and I do like them once I remember they exist. Their generally daintier shape and size makes them one of the prettier gulls in my opinion, and having black feet does make them easier to identify if you know what to look for. The kittiwakes at Bempton certainly amused us, but even better were the ones in Scarborough. We got stuck for about 2 hours in the station there on our way home, and loved watching the kittiwakes nesting in the corners of windows in the middle of town! Not sure the home owners will be so impressed, but we appreciated them!
The final bird on my list is both the most exciting and the saddest addition to the day. The species itself is not uncommon, but this poor man (lovingly known as Albie) must wonder why he has never found himself a friend. Believed to have been blown across the equator during a storm, Albie has for many years now migrated North to Yorkshire and Scandinavia, rather than South to the Falklands and South Georgia. As the only (known) albatross of any species in the Northern Hemisphere, he spends his life amongst the gannets and other seabirds instead, but I can't help but wonder if he's happy with them. I'd love to see him caught and returned to the Southern Hemisphere where he might be able to live the rest of his life amongst his own kind, but sadly this seems like an unlikely turn of events. It would be a major undertaking and would induce a huge amount of stress to transport him that far. Instead, we shall just have to appreciate our own luck to see such a magnificent bird.
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