Bempton Cliffs

On Sunday Kath and I made the long journey to the east coast to visit the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs near Flamborough Head. After a three hour journey we were pleased to find a parking place and have lunch before venturing down to the cliffs. Bempton is part of England's largest seabird colony with eight species nesting on the 400 ft high cliff faces. Bempton is famous as the only English gannet colony and the only one on the British mainland. The gannet is the most obvious bird you will see at Bempton and you cannot fail to be impressed as these large birds cruise along the clifftops and crowd onto their nesting ledges and provide spectacular viewing.
It is a dream destination for a bird photographer and provides endless opportunities to capture the constant action on and around the cliffs. So it was that I set out on my mission to bring back some memorable images on what was to be the hottest day so far this year. I joined the many visitors at the cliff top viewing areas and for the next four hours or so filled up the memory cards with hundreds of images.
In this first posting I have concentrated on the star bird, the gannet, but a further posting will feature the other residents such as kittiwakes, fulmars , guillemots , razorbills, etc..etc. It was not easy to capture the gannets on camera as they flew by ..sometimes at eye level.. and you had to be ready , focus , and fire the shutter and hopefully the results would be in focus and pleasing to the eye. Of course this is never the case and a lot of the shots have to be discarded but I did have a few decent images to show for my day's work. I have shown a selection above together with a couple showing the impressive scenery at Bempton and hopefully my readers will enjoy them as much as I did in trying to capture the action from this spectacular coastline. I will post more from the day out at a later date and show more of the residents of Bempton Cliffs.