We have just got back from two weeks touring in the eastern part of England, from Norfolk up to Yorkshire. Last week, I had two quite extensive sessions photographing gannets: once from the top of the RSPB reserve at Bempton cliffs (Wikipedia, RSPB); the other was from a boat to photograph diving gannets. For this piece, I will just show a few pictures from on top of the cliffs.
Last Monday was a gloriously sunny day, but with very blustery winds. I had wanted to go to Bempton cliffs for a very long time, and this was an excellent opportunity to see the largest gannet colony on mainland Britain. The opening picture shows a northern gannet (Morus bassanus Wikipedia RSPB ) seeming to hover in the wind as it sets up a landing into a blustery wind that is blowing parallel to the cliffs. I love the way it raises its tail and lowers its webbed feet to act as air-brakes.
Gannets are not the only birds there. There is a unique summer resident, a black-browed albatross. Normally, these are only residents of the southern hemisphere, so this one is a vagrant that seems to have taken to life on the Yorkshire cliffs very happily.
Albert the albatross. Black-browed Albatross, Thalassarche melanophris photographed from Bempton Cliffs.
With wild birds, you can never tell when they will put in an appearance: when we got to the reserve about lunchtime, we heard that it had been sitting out on the cliff face since 8 am that morning. There was, naturally, no indication that it would move at all that day. However, we hung out at the Staple Newk viewpoint along with a couple of dozen other people: eventually, around about 4 o'clock, it took to the air and did two circuits in front of us, before heading out to sea where it settled down to go fishing. That was the last we saw of it.
The gannet colony at Bempton
Adult northern gannets and some still fledged chicks (the dark birds with grey fluff around the heads)
The gannets were flying in front of us and coming in from the sea to perch on the rocks, almost too close to get in the frame of my 500PF lens. The wind was strong enough and in the right direction so that they were able to almost hover above their perch as they came in to land. They were most cooperative for the photographers present! There were many chicks in fluffy coats sitting on the cliffs, as yet unfledged. Further out to sea, skeins of gannets seemed to patrol back and forth as they headed to and from feeding further out.
An adult gannet with white dorsal surfaces to the wings
I think this is a year 3 immature gannet with its dorsal surfaces partly showing dark feathers.
There were fewer other species than I had hoped for, but I got some lovely views of fulmars and kittiwakes. The juvenile kittiwakes, in particular, have extremely attractive markings. They flew further out from the cliffs (giving better chances for photography) than the adults which tended to fly lower down and only appeared in my field of view for about half a second at a time.
This picture and above: fulmar
Juvenile kittiwake and (picture above) adult kittiwake.
It was quite exhausting in the wind, but a glorious way to spend an afternoon.