An old friend returns

My top bird last year was Albert, the black-browed albatross who spent the Summer at Bempton cliffs with the gannet colony. It took me 3 goes to finally connect with him, but when I did, what a bird! He was actually a very long-staying bird in the North Sea, totally lost from his normal South Atlantic breeding grounds. He obviously liked it there, as this Spring he returned to meet up with his distant cousins the gannets. I wanted to go back and see him, so the chance to combine that with the Turkestan shrike proved too much and I booked an overnight trip up to Yorkshire. The shrike is covered in my previous blog post, this will focus on Albert and the birds of the cliffs.

On the first day, a Sunday, Albert proved elusive. There was an early sighting off Flamborough Head but he didn't appear at the colony until very late in the evening, by which time I tucking into fish and chips in Bridlington! Bempton is always full of interest so I profitably spent the day watching the other inhabitants, mainly the gannets. Every year Bempton holds over 200,000 breeding seabirds - gannets, kittiwakes, fulmars, shags, razorbills, guillemots and puffins. The gannets alone number over 11,000 pairs.

The cliffs stretch for some miles and the RSPB reserve is only one section, but every ledge was packed with seabirds. Quite sensibly you are kept well back from the edge as the drop is over 400ft straight down! This late in the year the grass on the edges was quite tall so mostly you were watching the birds fly past, often at eye-level to you.

The gannets varied from full adults, with their pure-white wings tipped in black, to juveniles, with decreasing amounts of black in their wings as they become adults.

Anyway, onto the star of our show. With no sign on Sunday I was determined to catch-up with Albert on Monday. My hotel was only 15 minutes drive from the reserve so an early night and an early start got me on site at 6.15. There were already a dozen cars there, some presumably off for the shrike, others to the cliff. A 15 minute walk got me to Staple Newk, the furthest south of the viewing platforms and from where Albert was most often seen. Surprisingly no one was there but I could see a group of 7 or 8 people further along the cliff, 'scopes trained down on the cliff below me. I fast yomped to where they were and immediately was told Albert was asleep on the cliff. Seeing him was tricky to say the least. Fortunately another birder had their 'scope on him and I got my bearings.

The photo below is a massive crop of the one above. Albert is in the centre, facing left with the black mantle! Enough to say it was him but not exactly stunning views. 

Collectively we discussed options and decided that the platform would be the best place to go and wait for him to wake up and hopefully have a fly around. This is the view looking down from the platform. Albert will be in the middle of the frame, out of sight behind the ridge!

We had to wait about half an hour, still being entertained by the gannets rousing themselves for a mornings fishing.

By now there were, I guess, 15 or so people on the platform, just about the right number for everyone to have front-row seats. I'd got pretty much prime position, right over the ridge line, with two cameras ready to go - hand-held and on the tripod. Finally a distinctive black shape appeared drifting over the colony, the shout went up "flying" and there was an explosion of motor-drives whirring into action! It can be easy to lure yourself into thinking some of the darker juvenile gannets might have been him at a distance. When you see him though there is no doubt - the long, narrow wings, the great big yellow/ pink beak, the sharp contrast between the wings and the body and the whole jizz. If you only think you've seen an albatross you haven't, you'll know it when you do!!

Last year when I saw Albert it was a combination of very distant views of him on the cliff and even more distant ones of him flying around. This was much, much closer. As the platform gradually filled with more admirers, Albert proceeded to fly around the sea-cliffs right below us, treating us to stunning views.

He didn't seem to have a purpose to his journeying, just stretching his wings and enjoying the morning sun. I had to be careful not to clip the edge of his wings in the photos. His wingspan is 7-8ft compared to a gannet of up to 6ft. The gannets seemed just to ignore him as he drifted around over their nests. He is no threat to them, eating fish caught out to sea by diving like the gannets.

Eventually his wanderings became longer and longer as he dropped down to the level of the sea. Even here you could make out the sheer size of him. You could appreciate the way he drifted around with barely a flap of his wings, despite the very still day. 

Finally there was a period of 20 minutes or so when he didn't appear and I figured he had probably gone out fishing. I actually went back to the farm for a bit more shrike action and he was not really seen again till later in the day. 

As well as the gannets and Albert there was much to keep me amused over the two days. Fulmars are closely related to albatrosses, being tubenoses which can filter sea-water in order to drink. They behave very similarly, drifting on straight wings over the sea and playing on the thermals on the cliff.

Kittiwakes were ever-present, especially with their onomatopoeic call "kitty-warrk, kitty-warrrk". They still had quite young chicks and eggs, balanced precariously on the cliff ledges.

Guillemots and razorbills and indeed puffins were mainly on ledges out of sight or in large rafts on the sea. Only occasionally did they present an opportunity for a photograph, like this razorbill.

I'll leave the last word to the gannets though. On a perfect sunny day the sight of squadrons of them drifting past, their constant squabbling on the cliffs and their mastery of the air makes them worth the visit alone. This truly is a magical place, even without the star of the show!