Our RSPB Nature Reserve at Bempton Cliffs in East Yorkshire is a jaw-dropping place to visit in the late spring and summer (pretty good at any time actually) when the nesting seabirds are at the height of the breeding season. The sights, sounds and smells combined with the vertiginous view are one of the great natural spectacles (and within easy reach of some great fish and chips).
Bempton Cliffs - a seabird spectacular! Photo by me.
I was there, with my family, last summer. Bempton’s cliffs are well protected not only designated as one of the most important places for birds in Europe but also a nature reserve.
Job done then?
Well, no. The birds busy raising their families on the cliff’s ledges and amongst the rabbit holes and crevices depend on the sea below for their food and a place to hand out when off duty. Protecting just the cliff is a bit like having home insurance just for the bedroom of your house – it’s a start, but doesn’t really go far enough.
So we welcome the Government’s proposal to extend the Flamborough Head and Bempton Cliffs Special Protection Area (SPA) in recognition of the coast’s importance for breeding seabirds.
The current SPA, which includes most of Flamborough Head, is home to large populations of seabirds during the breeding season including kittiwakes, gannets, fulmars, guillemots and razorbills.
The proposal, announced on 20 January, will extend the SPA northwards from Filey Brigg along the coast northwards to Cunstone Nab, and also 2km out to sea along the length of the boundary.
This extended SPA will be renamed Flamborough and Filey Coast and provide extra legal protection for colonies of seabirds that were previously outside of the boundary and for all of the seabirds that use the sea for preening and bathing.
This is genuinely a positive step in the right direction coming, as it does, together with a proposed marine SPA in Cornwall bringing the number of such sites in England to four. But this is a process that should have been completed three decades ago – the job of protecting the marine areas that are vital for the birds when not on their coastal breeding areas has been lamentably slow.
Designation is, of course, just a first step to effective conservation (though a vital one) – one of the characteristic birds of Bempton is the delightful kittiwake – a cliff-nesting gull that widely calls its name as they wheel around the cliffs – in the decades that we’ve been waiting for the recognition of the importance of the sea as well as their cliffs numbers have halved in the current designated SPA – and one of the concerns we now have is that there is no clear plan to address the worrying collapse.
However, we’re concerned that there is no clear plan in the proposal to address the alarming declines of kittiwakes, the number of which has halved over the past few decades in the current SPA.
The consultation on the proposal is now underway and will close at noon on 14th April 2014. Information, such as the consultation document and maps can be found on Natural England’s web site.
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