We’ve been promising to show Jack his first puffin for ages – and a few weekends ago we set off up the Great North Road on a pilgrimage to Yorkshire’s seabird city. I hadn’t visited for a good few years; it was a first for Claire and Jack.
Shimmying our way through the cramped shop-***- visitor centre (with its warm welcome from the Bempton team) - and trying to avoid poking other visitors in the eye with my tripod - didn’t diminish the expectation of the assault on the sense that peering over the vertiginous cliffs always brings.
Noise, the dizzying view, the commotion of the thousands of birds clinging to the cliffs or commuting to the sea ... and the smell.
Jack was a little a grumpy as it took a few minutes to locate his first puffin – but he soon had a telescope-full and then he was spotting his own puffins and learning the difference between guillemots and razorbills and pointing out the gannets.
Gannet numbers have steadily increased at Bempton. Photo A R Farrar
Claire and Jack enjoyed their first visit to Yorkshire's seabird city. Photo A R Farrar
Once we’d filled our memory banks with the sights and sounds of Bempton it was off to Bridlington for fish and chips.
The cliffs, birds, sea thing at Bempton is without parallel on the mainland, but the shop-***-visitor centre is, well, a bit small and has served it’s time. So I was delighted when this news popped up yesterday announcing funding from the wonderful Heritage Lottery Fund to revamp the visitor facilities and get them up to a standard that matches the A1, tip top wildlife spectacle.
Follow me on twitter