Amazing Bempton Cliffs!! - on 8th August, 2013

In my last post, I said I'd do a separate post on my visit to Bempton Cliffs during my Yorkshire holiday based in Scarborough. This was, primarily, because I took so many photos during my visit!

I had a gentle start to the day, only leaving my hotel at about 09:00. Bempton is just over the border from North Yorkshire and, as I didn't have any problems passing through the customs post to get into East Yorkshire, I was parked up at Bempton Cliffs by 09:30.

As I left my car, a Jackdaw was playing with an ear of grass in the field.

Jackdaw - Bempton Cliffs

Rather than head directly to the cliff edge I set off on the 'nature trail' as this had been quite productive on my previous visit. However, on this occasion, I didn't manage any photos of the (mainly) Goldfinch and Blackcap that I saw.

There are several viewing platforms at Bempton Cliffs, which roughly lie in a south-east to north-west direction and, heading north-west, I first visited Bartlett Nab. Here Kittiwakes were resident on the vertiginous cliffs, with Gannets also on the cliffs in the distance.

Kittiwake - Bempton Cliffs

Gannet - Bempton Cliffs

I was wanting to get some flight shots, particularly of the juvenile Kittiwakes, but the field of view was quite narrow here if you wanted to keep the sun behind you, and the best spot was already taken by someone doing exactly what I wanted to do! These are the best that I could do from this point, but fortunately much better were to come later.

Gannet - Bempton Cliffs

Kittiwake (juvenile) - Bempton Cliffs

I left Bartlett Nab with a view to coming back later, and continued north-west towards Jubilee Corner. On the way I am pleased that I noticed a caterpillar walking across the path in front of me. I'm not sure what it was, but I'm confident that it's one of the brush-foot butterflies, and think it might be a Painted Lady - any suggestions?

brush-foot butterfly caterpillar - identification would be most welcome!

At Jubilee Corner, I found an RSPB type with a scope, so I went to another area of the platform. Here I was closer to the Gannets, and there were some good opportunities for photography.

The first thing I noticed was a Gannet on a pinnacle of rock with what looked like a kid's white fluffy toy beside it. I nearly accused the RSPB (or should that be 'rspb' to conform to their current ridiculous attempt at re-branding) guy of putting the toy there, when it moved and revealed itself to be a genuine Gannet chick! Now I've never found photographing black and white birds in bright sunlight to be particularly easy, with a tendency to burn out the whites, or loose the detail in the blacks. However, probably more by luck than judgement, I didn't seem to have too much of a problem this day - where virtually all the birds seen were black and white! What I did have problems with was my artistic abilities. Why do I say this? Well, if you've got birds sitting beautifully on a pinnacle and you've got any sense (unlike me) you take the photo in portrait orientation so that you can see that it's an impressive pinnacle. Not me - all mine were taken in landscape!!

Gannet - Bempton Cliffs

Whilst at this point I noticed that, from time to time, some of the solitary birds perched on a ledge would do a little dance, with sky-pointing, neck-twisting, and chest-expanding all taking place whilst making quite a racket, as partly shown below. I suspect that this might have been a territory thing.

Gannet - Bempton Cliffs

There were also a few Kittiwake here, but they were in the shade. This next one is of a juvenile.

Kittiwake - Bempton Cliffs

This was not really the location for flight photos, so I headed back south-east again. Just before reaching Bartlett Nab there was a couple with their gaze firmly out to sea. They'd spotted something marine and were not sure if they'd been looking at a basking shark or a couple of seals! I couldn't pick up on what they'd seen so continued to the Nab. It was now crowded here so I made for the next platform along, which is Grandstand.

There were quite a few people at Grandstand too, but still plenty of room for me. I managed a photo of a passing Fulmar - not as sharp as I would have liked.

Fulmar - Bempton Cliffs

Whilst there, the 'marine creatures' came into view and were identified as a pair of Harbour Porpoises. Given that the cliffs are about 100 metres high at this point and we're looking out to sea at an angle, these were probably about 150 metres away, so only distant record shots were obtained.

Harbour Porpoise - Bempton Cliffs

From Grandstand I continued south-east to New Roll-up. On the way I found another Jackdaw. This one seemed totally happy with my presence and ignored me, even when I was only about 4 metres away!

Jackdaw - Bempton Cliffs

At New Roll-up, although there are impressive views of the arch at Staple Newk with its Gannet colony (see next image), I didn't find any other inspiration for photography.

Gannet Colony on Staple Newk - Bempton Cliffs

Continuing to the final viewing platform at Staple Newk, as I approached I was immediately impressed when a Gannet suddenly came into view as it rose above the edge of the cliff. I knew then that I was going to get some photo opportunities here, and this is the way it turned out to be.

Gannet - Bempton Cliffs

This is the view you get of Staple Nook from the viewing platform.

Gannet Colony on Staple Nook - Bempton Cliffs

Whilst I feasted on Gannets here, and before putting in a whole raft of images, I'll just put in one of Puffins. Puffins were only seen on the sea, or flying past. The ones shown below were, again, at about 150 metres distance, so again, only a record shot.

Puffin - Bempton Cliffs

There were plenty of juvenile Gannets around in varying states of plumage and I tried to make sure that I included a fair number of these in my photography. Here's a selection of images from Staple Newk.

Gannet - Bempton Cliffs

As you can imagine, I found Gannets an absolutely wonderful subject for photography. However, I do now realise that I missed out on some of the other opportunities. For example I wish I'd spent more time seeking images of Fulmar, although they didn't show up often. And there's always the need to go back and try for more and better images of the juvenile Kittiwakes. So I'm really looking forward to going back there some time.

I'll leave you with my favourite image from the whole session. This, like many of the others above, was full-frame uncropped! Thank you for visiting.

Gannet - Bempton Cliffs