Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Another page from my Skokholm Island sketchbook, drawn on Thursday, 10th April, 1980, watching razorbills, wheatear, and grey seals. My drawing of the rocks didn’t get finished because:
“The puffins were enjoying the evening sun, standing in pairs outside their burrows, when I came back from a tea-break so I decided to leave them in peace”
Probably a first even for me, blaming the puffins for an unfinished sketch!
Quarter of a million seabirds nest at Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve. Each species has a preference for a particular niche on the cliff.
The ledges are bedding planes in the chalk. Vertical joints break the cliff face up into blocky units. In my photograph (above) the block that the herring gull is nesting on looks as if it’s well on its way to becoming detached from the cliff face.
There’s an eye-wateringly stiff breeze this morning so this is a challenging place to try out my new telephoto lens. Although I’ve mounted the camera on a monopod/walking pole it’s still getting buffeted around so I leave the image stabilisation switched on.
Puffins are the stars of the show at the reserve but one of the wardens is having difficulty pointing them out as they keep flying off.
I get a distant view of a pair checking out a crevice at the top of the cliff. At Bempton puffins nest in crevices rather than in rabbit burrows.
Also near the top of the cliff, this razorbill’s mate looks as if it too is considering nesting in a crevice but you’re more likely to see them nesting on the smaller upper ledges.
In an adaptation to nesting on cliff ledges, the razorbill’s egg is tapered at one end so that, if knocked, it will roll in a tight circle. The chicks are born with an innate fear of heights, so they don’t stray too near the edge.
At Bempton the guillemots tend lower down the cliff, sometimes getting together in nesting colonies on the larger ledges.
Kittiwakes can make use of the smallest ledges, building up a nest with seaweed and grass.
I just miss the perfect photo opportunity: six or seven gannets have landed on the cliff top to gather beak-fulls of grass; they’re just yards away from a group of birdwatchers but by the time I’ve set up my camera they’ve all flown off again.
Link: RSPB Bempton Cliffs reserve.