Recent Sightings for May

Hello there,

Fun on the Bank Holiday Weekend

We kicked off the month with a bit of a cold wet start to the Bank Holiday Weekend. But once the sun decided to come out, so did our lovely visitors, with Bank Holiday Monday being declared the busiest day in Bempton Cliffs’ history. Although the puffins were a little elusive that day, we had lots of families enjoying our events and guided walks throughout the weekend.

Quick updates on the usual suspects

• Many puffins are now incubating eggs in their chosen nest chamber inside the cliffs, often appearing to head out to sea to fish or to swap incubation duty with their partner. They can be best seen flying to and from the cliffs at the Grandstand, Mosey Downgate and Bartlett Nab viewpoints
• More and more gannet chicks are beginning to hatch, mainly at Staple Newk but one has now been spotted at Jubilee Corner
• The kittiwakes are now well into nest building, with large numbers regularly flying back and forth over the footpath to gather nesting material, making for an impressive sight
• The first guillemot chicks have now been spotted at Flamborough Head, and the first chick at Bempton was spotted on the 21st from Jubilee Corner. Take a look at Sophia’s latest post to see some very cute pictures
• After heading out to sea for the past week, the fulmars have now returned and are being seen regularly, with the first egg spotted on the 21^st May

Return of the swallows

Visitors to the old centre may remember the pair of swallows that nested in the roof last summer. We were concerned for a while that the disruption of building the new centre would put off any new breeding pairs. But I’m happy to announce that we have a nesting pair once again, this time in their very own fancy swallow nesting box at the entrance to the centre. The first signs of life in the box were spotted on the 9^th May, when we arrived at the centre to find a present of swallow droppings underneath the box. Lovely.

You can just make out the swallow on the nest

The daily droppings corner underneath the box

Update on Nest 33 at 4 weeks

The first chick of the year is now 4 weeks old, and has grown massively over such a short space of time. It can be easily seen on the live camera, admittedly looking a bit squashed now that it is beginning to outgrow the nest space.

Bit of a cheats picture of Nest 33 on the live feed screen

The reserve after closing time

Earlier this week, Becky, Sophia and I went for a walk up to the reserve to try and get some great pictures for this blog. Although my little digital camera wasn't quite up the job of zooming right in on the nesting birds, I did manage to get this snap of our resident barn owl. As we walked along the path, this cheeky chappy would fly from post to post, looking particularly spectacular among all the campion.

And I'll finish with this lovely shot of the sun setting over Jubilee Corner. The reserve is almost a different place in the evening, and now with the lengthening days I can''t recommend enough a trip up here once the sun begins to go down.

Thanks for reading!

Laura