Bempton

Gannet

I've been telling myself for two months that I should be getting out for a visit to Bempton Cliffs. I was wide awake at silly o'clock so I got up, had breakfast then got the trains over there. As it happened, it was a wise move: it was swelteringly hot at home with a Very High pollen count while at Bempton it was merely warm and sunny with a fresh sea breeze and all the grasses uncut and gone to seed, so I had a very pleasant time of it. It was a shock coming back to the sweltering heat.

I got the train to Sheffield and the Scarborough train to Bempton. The highlight of the journey was the three marsh harriers we passed South of Driffield, a male pouncing on something in one field and two female-types quartering the fields a little further along.

Swallow

Bempton Station was full of song. Swallows twittered about the houses, goldfinches and linnets sang from telephone wires, blackbirds and chiffchaffs sang from the roadsides. Swifts swarmed low over the village green and St. Michael's Church, which I found very encouraging. As I set off up Cliff Road the house sparrows of the village gave way to the tree sparrows of the farmland and I was on my way.

Cliff Road 

Skylarks sang in the fields by the roadside, whitethroats and yellowhammers joined the goldfinches and greenfinches singing from the hedgerows. I stopped at every gap in the hedgerows, in part to savour the landscape and in part of wallow in the cool sea breeze. The excellent year for painted ladies continued, I passed at least a dozen fluttering about the roadside nettles and they easily outnumbered the large whites, peacocks and small tortoiseshells.

Bempton Cliffs was, quite understandably, very busy. Very busy nature reserves provoke my antisocial instincts but I've no call to moan about it, they were all there for the same reason I was. And it's a big enough reserve to be able to avoid the jam-packed watchpoints and still have a very rewarding visit. Which is what I did.

Joining the same path i was walking in North Wales the other week.

The tree sparrows fidgeted about the visitor centre, heard more often than seen as they were busy foraging in the undergrowth and the depths of the meadows. Reed buntings were conspicuous, it seemed like there was a singing male in every other bush. Meadow pipits and linnets were numerous but kept their heads down in the meadows most of the time. And all the time a male kestrel quartered the fields and clifftops.

Bempton Cliffs

Gannet
The first sight as I got to the cliffs

Gannets

Gannets a-courting

The gannetry was teeming. All the while there was a background hubbub that reminded me that one of the old names for the gannet was Solan goose. There were gannets of all ages but the majority were adults. The few youngsters that I saw were all very young. Quite a few pairs close to hand on the clifftops were spending most of their time sky-pointing together reinforcing their courtship bonds. 

Gannets

Gannet
A fourth- or fifth-year bird, I think.

Gannet

Gannet

Guillemot

The auks were harder work. Not that they weren't abundant but they were mostly either loafing on the water or dashing madly between cliffs and the sea. The loafing birds looked like a thin peppering about at first glance but there were lots of rafts of auks, mostly guillemots, out there and some of the rafts had fifty or more birds in them. Guillemots and razorbills had the time for a bit of a rest and a preen, the puffins were on the  go all the time. They'd zoom in towards the cliffs with beaks full of sand eels then suddenly disappear from view. As far as getting any photos of any of them was concerned it was a matter of pointing the camera where an auk looked to be headed and hope for the best. To be fair to the camera, this is precisely not what it was designed for and my reaction times aren't what they were. The few photos of puffins I got were by accident as I tried to capture passing fulmars. For once the fulmars showed very well and the kittiwakes were shy of showing. Perhaps the presence of a flock of herring gulls loafing on the clifftop was making them keep close to their nests.

Fulmar

Fulmar

Fulmar

Fulmar

Fulmar

Kittiwake

Puffin

Puffin

Gannet, exit stage top

Gannet

Gannet

Gannet
A second- or third-year bird, I think

Gannet

Gannet
Another one I think is a fourth- or fifth-year bird

Gannet
A second-year bird, I think. I thought something was wrong with its eye but the eye's okay, the apparent bulging wound is juvenile feathers on the ear coverts.

Gannet

On the approach to the New Roll-up watchpoint the gannets were providing breathtaking photo opportunities, flying in and stalling in the wind before dropping down to the clifftops. Of course, having the opportunities and successfully taking them are quite different things, I've plenty of pictures of tails and wingtips as the wind shifted and a gannet dropped, rose or banked. It meant I had a lot of photos to review but there were a few nice ones in there.

Gannets

Gannets

Gannets

The kestrel had drifted over to hunt over the clifftops

Walking back I was glad to see some razorbills had joined the pigeons of the cliff sides.

Pigeons (left) and razorbills

Black-tailed skimmer

I had a wander over to the pool by the car park, hoping to see some tadpoles or froglets. No tadpoles or froglets but plenty of azure damselflies and a black-tailed skimmer. And a willow warbler serenading the visitors to the pool.

Willow warbler

Willow warbler

Yellowhammer

It was slightly cloudier as I walked back to Bempton Station but still very pleasant walking weather. A blackcap joined the yellowhammers, whitethroats and greenfinches singing by one of the farmsteads. I had twenty minutes to wait for the train back to Sheffield after a very good day's birdwatching. Had I stayed local I would probably have been poleaxed by the heat and pollen count, I certainly was by the time I had walked back home from Urmston.

Bempton Cliffs 

Bempton

Gannet

I thought it about time I used up one of those "Go anywhere on the Northern Rail network free" tickets that have been burning a hole in my pocket and headed out to Bempton. I cheated and bought a ticket from Oxford Road to Sheffield so I wouldn't be hanging around for fifty-seven minutes waiting for the Scarborough train and cut the travelling time to just short of four hours.

It had been overcast and decidedly cool when I set out, which together with its being a Monday that isn't a bank holiday and not half-term school holidays led me to hope it wouldn't be too busy. By the time my train arrived at Bempton it was a warm, sunny late morning.

A chiffchaff, a wren and a blackbird sang in the bushes by the station and swallows twittered on telegraph wires. As I walked into the village rooks called and whitethroats sang in the fields, chaffinches and blackcaps joined in the chorus and moorhens fussed by the village pond. The picture was completed by the swifts chasing each other round the village church.

Cliff Lane 

By the time I'd walked down Cliff Lane to Bempton Cliffs the clouds had all but disappeared and the house sparrows of the village given way to the tree sparrows of the hedgerows. Along the way the "bit of bread and butter and no cheese" song of yellowhammers had joined the chaffinches and whitethroats in the wayside trees. It was all rather pleasant.

Tree sparrow

The Dell was stiff with tree sparrows, many intent on striking picturesque poses right to the moment a camera appeared. A lot of the time trying to tell the difference between house sparrows and tree sparrows by ear is a matter of subtleties of pitch and tone. It's quite different when you get tree sparrows en masse like this, there are squeaks and trills you'll never hear from a house sparrow.

A busy watch point

The reserve was very busy, despite it being a Monday, not being a bank holiday and not being a school holiday. A quick sken round confirmed that all the watch points over the cliffs were crowded.

Along the clifftop

No matter. I've had my goes on those, I was happy to have a stroll across the meadow and drift along the cliff tops seeing whatever I might in the process. It would be impossible not to see gannets, kittiwakes and guillemots and it wouldn't be difficult to see razorbills and puffins, and nor was it. Fulmars were trickier to find away from the watch points but I saw them.

Gannet

Kittiwakes 

Kittiwakes
Living on the West coast of England it's difficult to imagine that the kittiwake is our most numerous gull. Then you go over to the East coast and it's obvious.

Razorbills

Guillemots
It's not only tufted ducks as roll over onto their backs to scratch their bellies

Gannet

Gannet

Gannets

Gannet, a three year-old bird

Gannets
I was fighting a high contrast light all day

Gannet

Gannet, a four year-old bird 

Gannet near miss

Gannet

I took a lot of photos of the rear end of gannets as they passed by or their feet as they suddenly rose and shot overhead. I'd picked the wrong venue if I wanted not to be reminded that I'd left the house smelling of cat food. The gannetry is one of the more intimate birding experiences. (I had a similar but different experience once on a boat going round Bass Rock as the gannets plunge-dived into the sea only just beyond arm's reach.)

Guillemots, razorbills and puffins (front)

The puffins were easiest to see at sea, bobbing about on the peripheries of rafts of guillemots and razorbills. They took indirect routes to their nesting burrows, rarely flying in a straight line into the cliffs, with one eye cocked for crows or gulls. A smashed guillemot's egg, the yolk oozing over the path, demonstrated the wisdom in this approach.

The view towards Flamborough

Tree sparrows bobbed in and out of the clifftop red campions. Skylarks and meadow pipits sang in the open meadow and the jackdaws were well nigh everywhere, if they weren't scuffling about in the grass they were rubbing shoulders with the crowds of pigeons on the cliffs. A reed bunting sang from the long grass at the far side of the meadow near the visitor centre and a pheasant called from God knows where. A heavy-looking small brown job bobbed up over the cliff edge long enough for me to recognise it as a rock pipit. A couple of pied wagtails were less flighty. 

Pied wagtail 

A passing barnacle goose seemed out of place.

Barnacle goose 

I saw more red admirals on the clifftops today than I've seen all year. A comma fluttered inland and lost itself in the meadow. A pair of common blues chased each other round a patch of campion. Another butterfly drifted low over the path as I walked along. At first I thought it another comma but it looked bigger, an impression reinforced by it's not having crinkly indented wings. I don't see fritillaries very often so don't have an instinctive feeling for their ID. It didn't help that it wasn't stopping to have its photo taken. By a process of elimination, despite the unhelpfulness of the modern search engine, I came to the conclusion it was a dark green fritillary (which is actually orange-brown but don't worry about it).

Tree sparrow

After one last look at the tree sparrows in the Dell I headed back down Cliff Lane, serenaded by more whitethroats, chaffinches and yellowhammers. Somewhere in a copse a couple of fields away a buzzard was begging loudly.

The view towards Bridlington 

I had half an hour to wait for the train back. A pair of swallows were busy at a nest by the station while the chiffchaff was joined by robins, wrens, blackbirds and a dunnock.  The highlight of the journey back — besides the Peak District in the golden hour — was a fine roebuck posing in a field by the line near Rawcliffe Bridge.

A long day was made the longer by a missing bus home. I got the bus to Urmston and walked back, getting a bag of chips en route. I'll sort out the photos and add them to this post tomorrow.

Bempton Cliffs