For the second of these blogs on gannets, last Friday, I went on a boat trip organised by Yorkshire Coast Nature (YCN) to photograph gannets diving a couple of miles offshore from Bempton Cliffs.
I was one of 12 photographers gathered at 05:30 in Bridlington harbour for a 06:00 sailing with Steve Race of YCN. We were due for a six-hour trip, returning at around 12:00. Speaking as someone who gets seasick easily, I was delighted that there just happened to be very little wind, and the sea was flat calm as we headed out. Even so, I took a motion sickness tablet as we left port: this must have worked, because I was unaffected the whole time (thank goodness!).
After sailing for an hour or so, we arrived under Bempton cliffs, to see the gannet colony from below, and scan for Albert (see the previous blog). After a fruitless search for an albatross shape on the cliffs, we headed out from the cliffs into open water.
Bempton cliffs from the boat: the white blobs are all gannets
Chum: two of the buckets of fish on board the boat.
Once we were a mile or two offshore, the boat’s skipper started “chumming” - throwing mackerel, one or two at a time, into the sea. We had 6 big buckets of mackerel, so that was plenty to keep us going. The gulls came down first, seeming to make off with the fish in triumph.
First go at the chum
Gannets circling the boat and diving
It did not take long for the gannets to spot what the gulls were up to, and before we knew it, they had chased the gulls away, and were busy diving for the fish, swimming up under them and emerging back into the air with them in their beaks.
Two gannets compete for the catch
Gannet and fish head :)
Competing even before they are out of the water
Inevitably, more than one bird would go after any one fish, and there were squabbles between them over which would get the prize. As my pictures show, usually the prize would be split: one bird would get the tasty bit with all the meat, the other would be left with just the fish’s head. (Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up yum!).
Calling as it goes into a dive
Three images of gannets diving. The fold their wings back and move like arrows…
Synchronised diving!
The birds were circling around us, perhaps one or two hundred of them (or no more than 1% of the colony, at a guess), diving when they reached a perfect position. Before they dived, they seemed to hunch their shoulders and emit a loud call. I used this as a way of tracking them and trying to follow them as they dived. Getting diving pictures is really hard: they fold their wings back and dive like arrows into the water, going faster and faster as they descend. I followed them down as best I could, accelerating the pan of my camera as the birds fell from the sky, and managed to get several diving shots.
Swimming gannet, with the reflections of others above. Note also the small part of another bird’s beak as it dives, top left.
I also tried capturing images of the birds as they swam underwater. Even harder. I think I’d need a polariser on to cut down reflections on the water ideally, but given the lousy light (more on that below), I didn’t want the light loss. Nevertheless, I got one image that I liked.
Even though the trip was quite long, it seemed no time before we had finished the chum, and were heading back to port. It was an intense session, but not exhausting by any means.
Floating fulmar
Floating guillemot (deep crop from the original image)
Sandwich tern and guano-covered buoy
On the way back, I took the opportunity to get a few pictures of other species. Fulmars were around, and a nice, cooperative one floated quite close. There were some guillemots too, but they were never close. I managed a few shots, but I’d have done much better to have my 500PF with me for them. We also passed a sandwich tern posing on a bright yellow buoy, just outside the harbour, which was a lovely sight.
All in all, a fabulous experience. I’d like to do it again but in better light. You can see from the pictures the day was dull and grey. This kind of light has advantages for dealing with bright, white birds with dark wing feathers: the sky acts as the world’s biggest softbox, softly wrapping around the birds with moderate contrast. This greatly reduces risk of blowing highlights or blocking shadows. On the other hand, dull light is just that - dull light. A bit of sunlight does wonders. Another time perhaps.
A quick word about gear and settings. I took my D500 with the 70-200mm f/2.8 as my primary camera. The D500 has excellent autofocussing, and 10 frames per second giving plenty of chances for pictures of the birds moving like rockets and arguing with each other. I used manual shutter speed and aperture, typically my usual bird-in-flight settings of 1/3200 and (in the dull light) around f/4.5. I had auto-ISO to go with this, with exposure compensation judged by the blinkies (highlight warning on the rear screen) and the histogram. The ISO values went up quite high (e.g. up to around 3200), but the D500 can cope with this. I also had my D810 with the 24-120mm lens for environmental pictures. Another time, I’d take the 500PF as well for shots of other birds in the area (like the guillemots). The video above is from my iPhone.
Even in August, it can get cold sitting on a boat out at sea, so I wore a base-layer and fleece, with a waterproof jacket on top; I also had a pair of waterproof overtrousers over my walking trousers, with a baseball cap as well (to protect my thinning scalp!) All told, I was very comfortable with that.
One final point: about “chumming”. This trip is advertised on the YCN website as a chumming trip, with the wild birds being fed fresh dead fish as bait. I’m happy with this, even though I can imagine some wildlife photographers will be dubious. There’s always an issue with luring wildlife with bait as it has the potential to change behaviour and make the target species dependent on the provision of food by humans. Correspondingly, there is, for instance, a statement on the Audubon website discouraging this practice. However, I have no concerns about this trip. There are so few of these trips during their limited season, and as far as I can tell no more than about 1% of the gannet colony turns up. So far as I know, there is no risk of the gannet colony becoming dependent on the largesse of photographers. There is also no practicable way of finding a shoal of fish where the gannets will feed spontaneously.
All in all, an amazing experience, and I’m delighted with some of the pictures I’ve got.
Gannet on a topside pass :)
Heading for the exit…