Bempton

Gannets

I know, I know, Bempton Cliffs on a bank holiday Saturday. After yesterday's debacle I needed a bit of a boost. I had a complimentary travel pass from Northern to play with so off I went.

The Sheffield train was nearly half an hour late so I missed the Scarborough train which would take me to Bempton. Given the choice between hanging round Sheffield for fifty minutes or hanging round Meadowhall for forty-five I opted for the latter. So I sat in the early morning sunlight listening to greenfinches, blackbirds and chiffchaffs and watching the goldfinches and robins flit about the bushes by the platforms.

Greenfinch, Meadowhall 

The clouds rolled in as we trundled into the East Riding and took on three trainfuls of passengers at Hull before we took a sharp left turn and headed off for Bridlington and beyond. When I got off the train at Bempton there was the threat of rain in the air that made me glad I'd brought my raincoat just in case. Swallows hawked over the station, chiffchaffs and whitethroats sang in bushes and a lot of juvenile rooks were making a racket in the nearby rookery. Walking through the village I felt a nostalgic twang at the sight of swifts hurtling round a church tower.

Yellowhammer, Cliff Road 

I headed up Cliff Road. The house sparrows and starlings of the village gave way to the whitethroats and yellowhammers of the fields, the robins and blackbirds were constant companions. I spent a few minutes watching two well-grown young hares running round the far corner of a field supervised by an adult. The rain didn't happen and it was all very pleasant.

Tree sparrow

Arriving at Bempton Cliffs sooner than I anticipated — I always think it's a much longer walk than it is — I checked out the scrap of woodland around the car parks. Over the past few days this has hosted a few late passage migrants including an icterine warbler and a marsh warbler, a couple of birds that would be lifers for me. I had no joy with lifers but there were plenty of nesting tree sparrows and a few youngsters. Blue tits, chiffchaffs, robins and wrens rummaged about in the bushes and woodpigeons and magpies bounced about in the trees. I had a bit of a sit down to watch the tadpoles in a little pond round the corner.

Bempton Cliffs 

The reserve was, predictably, very busy. I wandered over to the cliffs and had a look round, avoiding all the crowded viewpoints (the part of me that studied geology started talking about shear stresses, besides which I'd had a month's quota of crowds on the way in). 

Razorbills 

Hundreds of guillemots loafed on the sea, similar numbers huddled on sheer cliff faces. There seemed to be nearly as many razorbills until I looked down the gulleys at the big cliff faces and saw how many guillemots were crowded down there. The puffins took some finding, flitting in fast with their catches and disappearing almost immediately into their burrows.

Guillemots and razorbills 

Guillemots and razorbills 

Razorbills 

Razorbills and puffin

Razorbills 

Razorbill and pigeons
Most of these pigeons look like rock doves put genetically have a lot of feral pigeon about them.

Guillemots and razorbills 

Puffin

The kittiwakes made most of the noise on the cliffs near the visitor centre, calling and squabbling both in flight and on the ground. A few first-Summer birds still had their black W across their shoulders.

Kittiwakes

Fulmars were nesting under the banks of the cliffs, flying in and out almost effortlessly on stiff wings.

Fulmars 

Fulmar 

And then there were the gannets. Hundreds of them. Most were adults, a few three year old birds were flying about by the cliffs, I didn't see any younger birds close in. The clamour, and the smell of fish and seaweed, was inescapable. The birds flew very close by the path as they came back to their nests, us gawping humans of no more consequence to them than a herd of cows.

Gannet

Gannet

Gannets
Third-calendar-year bird above, adult below

Third-calendar-year gannet

Gannet

Gannets

This adult gannet still has some black feathers in the tail and secondaries, my guess (and it is a guess) is that it's a four year old bird.

Gannets

Gannets and guillemots 

Jackdaws, tree sparrows and corn buntings fed on the meadows inland from the cliffs, meadow pipits and skylarks sang overhead, reed buntings sang from the tall grass and the swallows nesting on the visitor centre twittered as they zipped by.

Jackdaw

I considered walking down the path by Wandale Farm but I'd lost an hour in the getting here and I had one eye on the train times for getting home at a reasonable time. I decided I'd best aim for the half three train back, the smell of the gannetry had reminded me there'd be a hungry cat at the other end of the line.

Barn owl

As I was walking back a pale shape rose from the meadows, a barn owl with mouths to feed on a mid-afternoon hunting session. It crossed into the fields beyond and came back again a few times giving wonderful, if distant, views in the process.

I had one last nosy in the trees by the car park before setting off back down Cliff Road. The tree sparrows were busy and a pair of blue tits had an active and very demanding nest on the go.

Cliff Road 

The walk back had a soundtrack of whitethroats, yellowhammers and robins. A couple of roe deers trotted down one of the field margins as I passed. Coming into the village a flock of sand martins twitted as they wheeled about over the houses.

Cliff Road 

I got to the station with ten minutes to spare for the train back to Sheffield just as the threatened rain decided to arrive. A long journey home was made the longer by the train's having to go slow due to a trespass incident at Bridlington which meant I just missed the quick train back to Manchester and had to get the bus home from Manchester. But it had been worth the effort and I felt a lot better for having done it.

Not a bad class of sunset to get home to