Bempton Cliffs

A black-browed albatross on your doorstep is really something to shout about. And that’s exactly what the team at Bempton Cliffs is planning to do on World Albatross Day. 

Site Manager, Dave O’Hara, said:

 'As the one place in the Northern Hemisphere where, for the past few months, you’ve been able to regularly see an albatross, this is the perfect time to celebrate such a rare visitor to our shores’.…

RSPB Bempton Cliffs has added a selection of amazing sweet treats from two local bakers to their cliff top café.

Katy Wheelwright and Karyn Hoggard, both based in Bridlington, are well known around the town for their fabulous baked goods. Katy’s previous venture was the Little Organic Bakery café and Karyn currently runs Tiffin and Co, in the Old Town.

Both bakers pride themselves not only on quality…

A puffin tip-toeing on water?  A gannet plummeting into the waves?  A fluffy chick teetering on wobbly legs?  

There’s no telling what magical moments you might experience aboard the Yorkshire Belle on an unforgettable trip to Bempton Cliffs, in the company of the RSPB.

Setting out from Bridlington, on the last of the resort’s famous pleasure cruisers, passengers sail beneath the towering chalk cliffs, for an up…

On Wednesday 23 March UK Youth for Nature joined forces with Sand In Your Eye, the RSPB and a whole host of other organisations to draw lines in the sand on Scarborough beach, creating a whopping 50 meter long sand drawing. This incredible artwork depicted four biologically significant British species: The oak, Eurasian curlew, Eurasian beaver and the Atlantic salmon. But this incredible piece of art carries a powerful…

The Brontes had their moors, Hardy had his heath and now author Catherine Miller has taken the landscape and wildlife of RSPB Bempton Cliffs as inspiration. 

Catherine, who’s based in the New Forest, has written a romantic novel, ‘99 Days With You’, whose two main characters visit the East Yorkshire coast nature reserve on a mission to see puffins.

Catherine explained:

‘It’s a boy meets girl tale with…

 Birdwatch magazine, the number one monthly magazine for enthusiasts, has just announced its birding ‘Oscars’ for 2021 in its February edition. 

 And the prestigious Site of the Year title, in it’s Birders’ Choice Awards, has been won by Flamborough Head/Bempton Cliffs.

 Amongst other winners was Chris Packham, who was named Conservation Hero of the Year.

The magazine described the East Yorkshire site…

If birds are RSPB Bempton Cliffs’ favourite thing, books are not very far behind.  Which is why, following a collaboration with the RSPB, when the book of the new festive Aardman film Robin Robin came out, the cliff top team donated a copy to the local library in Bridlington.

Robin Robin is the story of a little bird trying to find her place in the world and it’s showing on Netflix until 10 January. The beautifully…

It’s amazing what you find while clearing out the attic. While sifting through boxes in his Mother’s loft after her death, Viv Warne from near Pocklington, came across a postcard sent from Bempton in 1951.

So when he visited the East Yorkshire Coast nature reserve at Bempton Cliffs recently to celebrate his birthday, he brought the seventy year old card with him.

 Viv Warne with his second wife, June.

 His…

Last week our fabulous Warden, Dave, and our membership fundraiser, Andy, carried out some minor habitat work on our pond. This was to try and maintain the habitat and keep it in favourable condition. This basically involved removing a sizeable amount of the broad-leaved pond weed which has carpeted almost the entire surface of the pond, restricting light access below the water surface and suffocating lots of other aquatic…

We’re delighted to be partnering with Netflix and Aardman on Robin Robin, a half-hour, stop-motion, festive story for the whole family, about a young robin trying to fit in. It’s debuting on Netflix on 24 November – get the date in your diary!

To celebrate, we’re inviting you to join exclusive Robin Robin-themed adventure trails right here at RSPB Bempton Cliffs this Christmas season.

Over 30 RSPB…

The stars of the show at RSPB Bempton Cliffs are usually the stunning seabirds. 

 However, the arrival of a rarity, in the shape of a black-browed albatross, has seen a number of famous faces head to the East Yorkshire cliff tops over the past couple of months.

 Actor, Sam West, star of Channel 5s hit series, All Creatures Great and Small, spent a morning searching for the oceanic bird. Sam has visited the cliff tops with…

Having seen black-browed albatross on the Falkland Islands, local wildlife photographer, filmmaker and artist, Robert E Fuller, could hardly believe one had been spotted just up the road. So he set off to find it.  Here's his story: 

When I heard there was a black browed albatross on my doorstep, I packed my cameras and headed out to film it.

Albatross Off Course

The unlikely visitor was spotted at RSPB Bempton Cli…

Mowing the lawn on a Sunday took a very different turn at RSPB Bempton Cliffs recently.

Martin Stevens, from Hunmanby, is part of a group that meets up regularly to mow grassland using a scythe. And having visited the cliff top nature reserve, he thought that the meadow beyond the Seabird Centre would be the perfect place to practice cutting the ‘sward’. 

It’s a hobby that began around three years ago and…

Image: Kittiwake and chicks, Martin Jones-Gill

This week, I’m delving into the world of kittiwake monitoring! This is carried out in a pretty similar way to the herring gull monitoring I do here, but this time I’m watching just one fixed spot. My plot is on our Bartlett Nab viewpoint and here I am keeping an eye on 53 AON (apparently occupied nests) that I’ve marked up on a photograph of the cliff face.…

Each week, I head out on to the reserve to monitor a selection of herring gull nests. This year I’m keeping an eye on around 20 AOS (apparently occupied sites) that I’ve marked up across the reserve, between Jubilee Corner and Staple Newk viewpoints. But after some rather interesting weather conditions and some incredible vegetation growth here, there are few plots that I’ve not been able to see much of! Now, I’m keeping…

Ahead of World Seabird Day tomorrow, our next blog of our seabird series is all about the fantastic productivity monitoring we carry out here and why we do it.

So… what is productivity monitoring?

Productivity monitoring at Bempton Cliffs

Every year we carry out our seabird monitoring programme along the cliffs of Flamborough, Bempton and Filey. This is carried out by a seabird research team, reserve staff and…

An awful lot of work goes on behind the scenes at Bempton Cliffs. Between staff and volunteers, we conduct a whole host of seabird research here. From colony counts, to productivity monitoring and even tagging and tracking. Through research like this we can find out things like how many birds we have here, how successful they are with rearing chicks and even where they’re finding food!

In 2017 we did the largest…

There was an incredible start to the last week in March at RSPB Bempton Cliffs as visitors, volunteers and staff were treated to an amazing display from a pod of travelling bottlenose dolphins.

 Image: Ian Crossley

Estimates suggest there were around 25 adults moving southerly towards Flamborough, just 50 metres from the cliff. The dolphins were seen ‘breaching’ the waves and a young calf was clearly visible.…

Tuesday 30 March wasn’t just another day at the office for the team at RSPB Bempton Cliffs nature reserve..

Volunteers on the nature reserve’s viewing platforms were amazed to see not one but two white-tailed eagles, the UK’s largest birds of prey, soaring over the sea.

 Bempton Cliffs' sighting - Image: Ian Crossley

These giants of the sky have a massive wingspan of around 2.4metres (approx 8 feet…

As we’ve all recently learnt, sometimes the worst of times lead to the best of things. 

So when Jean Armstrong’s son, Paul, passed away in 2019, she wanted to find something special to do with the money raised from the collection at his funeral.

Jean and her late husband James, have been long-time supporters of the RSPB and through this link to the charity she learnt of a piece of sculpture being created at…

Hot off the press from our Warden, Dave Aitken, the lowdown on how our tree sparrows have fared this season.  Get ready, here come the numbers:

• 274 chicks successfully fledged from 40 active (contained eggs/chicks) nest boxes.
• A total of 91 separate nesting attempts were made from those 40 boxes of which 79 fledged chicks (102 nesting attempts from 44 boxes in 2019 of which 83 fledged chicks).
• 10 boxes had 1 nesting attempt…

I must be one of the few people who still use CDs for what they were intended and not turned them into coasters or wind chimes.  

During lockdown, I’ve dug out a few discs that haven’t seen the light of day for years and played them on an ancient portable CD player that’s provided the background music to many a picnic.   

One disc that came out of hibernation is Michael Nyman’s soundtrack to the 1993 Oscar…

Following the latest clear instructions from the Government for us all to remain at home apart from a limited number of allowed activities, we are closing our reserve to visitors until further notice.

These measures are on top of the existing closure of our visitor centres, cafes and shops.  It is with great sadness that we ask people to refrain from visiting the RSPB, to help us restrict the spread of coronavirus.

Following the latest government advice we have made the difficult decision to close the Seabird Centre to visitors from Thurs 19 March. This is to prioritise the health and welfare of our staff, volunteers and visitors.

These are difficult and unsettling times for all of us but we hope that nature can provide a welcome respite in whichever form and wherever you may encounter it. We want to do everything we can to help…