Then you’ll be interested to learn that as of tomorrow (the 20th of July) we will be stocking the RSPB’s very own brand of organic, fair trade chocolate. You can choose from milk chocolate, chocolate orange or dark chocolate and know that with every bar bought you’re helping to make the world a fairer, more environmentally friendly place. Also, it tastes pretty good, not that we’ve tried that much…
When we’ve managed to tear ourselves away from the chocolate testing, we’ve had plenty of other things to see, hear and smell. The swallow chicks in the porch are doing well and seem likely to fledge in the next week; the quail seem to be closing their net and have now totally surrounded the visitor centre, even making themselves heard in the car park bushes (!) and two weasels have been spotted cavorting around the picnic tables in the car park during the quieter moments of the day.
Sightings of meadow pipits, corn buntings, skylarks and linnets are relatively common for those of you who don’t just come to see the seabirds but - just for those of you who have a one-track seabird mind - huge numbers of puffins have been seen on the water at Staple Newk and Jubilee. This is a blessing in disguise however as they are probably doing a little bit of last minute socialising before they leave the breeding grounds. In contrast to these large numbers, one solitary common scoter was seen flying by over the sea at the weekend. Lets hope it finds a friend soon.
On the cliffs the seabird-monitoring season is coming to a close, with just the gannets and fulmars continuing to be checked. We’re happy to report that on the whole, the news looks good, with most species maintaining above average productivity. Hopefully when all of the data is collated we’ll be able to paint a much better picture of life on the cliff side.
Rachael Tulloch (Warden Intern, RSPB Fairburn Ings)