Bempton Cliffs

Saturday had us doing our yearly visit (I know we should go more!) to Bempton Cliffs. We finally picked a nice morning - the rain started after we got back to the car this time. The sea was blue, the sun was shining...a little and the cliffs were covered in the pink of Red Campion.

The views as always were gorgeous

Unfortunately about a gazillion (ish) tiny flying beetles chose Saturday to hatch and at points you couldn't open your mouth for fear of swallowing a few dozen! But we just ignored them mostly and didn't let them affect the day - though we did have a few stops to debug as we walked!

I don't actually know what they were but here's a couple of photos of two of the different types?

I'd find it difficult to pick a favourite bird here, they are all quite stunning especially when you see so many together, the noise is immense of course! Plus on top of cliffs you have Skylark, Whitethroat, Reed Bunting and Wren singing with Swallows zooming around too. 

Gannet

Razorbill

Kittiwake

(with a Herring Gull to the left)

Guillemot

Fulmar

And if you look closely just above the Gannets, a Puffin!

One of the Jackdaw's patrolling the cliff top - the camera struggled to focus here because of the amount of bugs in the air!

Whitethroat

Tree Sparrow

One of the Jackdaw's patrolling the car parks!

Pied Wagtail

Bempton

Last Sunday morning we drove over to Bempton, luckily i'd checked the weather beforehand as we were leaving behind 18°+ temperatures in Leeds to barely 11, rolling fog and a cliff top wind! I felt for the people who hadn't, there were a lot of shivering folk in shorts through the morning!

So wrapped up we walked onto the cliffs surrounded by the sounds of Meadow Pipits, Whitethroat and the odd Skylark too. We saw several of these large caterpillars, i'm not sure what they are.

Right from the off we spotted Puffins on the cliffs, there were 6 huddled up and a few flying about. In fact we have never seen so many in a visit before, maybe because we came at little earlier this year?

The cliffs were full of birds and we saw Kittiwakes, Herring Gull, Razorbill, Guillemot and even managed to find a couple of Fulmar too.

Razorbills

 Guillemots

Kittiwake

Herring Gull

Fulmar!

Razorbill

Gannets

Fulmar

Kittiwake

At one part the Kittiwakes were constantly flying backwards and forwards over the path and into the fields to pick up mouthfuls of grass.

We saw an egg on the floor, a really big egg that we thought must have come from a Gannet because of the size but it turned out to be a Guillemot egg!

A few Swallows were flying about and a Kestral swooped up from the cliffs and flew right in front of us and over the tops. The fog rolled about the cliffs most of the morning but didn't really hinder any views.

Jackdaw 

Tree Sparrow

A quick look in the managers garden and we were on hour way home....to warm up a little in the sun!