Filling my boots with an albatross

Some birds you just have to fill your boots with, no matter how many times you've seen one. A black-browed albatross at Bempton Cliffs is one such example. Yes I saw this bird at point blank range just over two weeks ago, yes I saw one (twice) at Herma Ness, Unst on Shetland in the 1980s and yes I've seen them from pelagics off Australia in recent years, but honestly if there's black-browed albatross sitting on a cliff in amongst the gannet colony at Bempton Cliffs you really can't see it too many times. It's essential viewing, so when I got the opportunity to go back today I jumped at it.

The gannet colony at Bempton has grown dramatically in the past few years. When I first visited the colony in 1984 I recorded 300 birds. By 2014 it had grown to 2000 pairs and the most recent population estimate puts it at 11,000 pairs. Why it should have grown so much is unclear to me, possibly other sites such as Bass Rock have reached capacity and this is the nearest available site at which the population can expand. Whatever the reasons it's an impressive spectacle especially on a bright sunny day such as today, the noise, the smell and views. Wonderful.

A large part of the colony is on Staple Newk, the impressive cliff at the southern end of the reserve and this is where I found the albatross when I arrived today, sitting on the cliff in amongst the gannets. In the photo above you can see an arch on the extreme left of the cliff which makes the cliff look like an elephants head with the trunk going into the water. If you go along the top of the head to the right you can see that the cliff then rises on a 45 degree angle and it was in this area that the albatross was sitting. I was standing at the New Roll-up viewpoint, the only place where you could see the bird, nearly 500m away, and given the distance, I think my photos of the bird on the cliffs are quite remarkable. From here you need a scope, you can just about make out the bird through binoculars but only if you already know where it is.

For a couple of hours we watched it as it just sat on the cliff, occasionally looking around and interacting with the gannets, sometimes preening. It's body length is not much more than a gannet, but it's a much bulkier bird and it's head and bill are massive, considerably larger than the gannets, with a  wingspan of around 20% longer at about 2.35m. However it is "only" a medium sized mollyhawk and is considerably smaller than the great albatrosses such as snowy albatross, which has a wingspan of nearly twice that of a gannet and over a metre longer even than black-browed albatross.

After a while we decided to have a walk to the next viewing platform on top of Staple Newk.

At Staple Newk you're right above the elephant's head with it's gannet colony, but unfortunately you can't see the albatross even though it's much closer, just over the ridge in fact. If it flies you get the best views from here but it's perfectly capable of sitting on the cliff all day and you can't really take your eyes off this area for fear of it flying and missing it, so it's just a case of waiting and hoping.

Still, the gannets provide plenty of entertainment and there were good numbers of puffins flying around as well. Albatross or no albatross, it's an awesome spectacle.

Eventually somebody shouted out "It's flying!" and suddenly it appeared right below us. Now the value of moving to the Staple Newk platform became obvious as we had incredible views at close range as it flew out from the cliff and gave us a great show flying around a few times before dropping down and settling on the sea. John Tymon who was standing next to me at the time took some fabulous photos, thanks to him for letting me share them here.

Black-browed albatross, Bempton Cliffs
Photo © John Tymon

Black-browed albatross, Bempton Cliffs
Photo © John Tymon

This is not really where you want it to be. It's a big bird which sits high in the water compared to the gannets, but it's also a huge ocean with thousands of birds sitting on the water and the albatross tends to drift further and further away from the cliff until sometimes it's just a dot in the distance and is very hard to pick out. Often it can drift so far that it's closer to Flamborough Head or Filey than Bempton, and this was the last we saw of the bird today, it landed on the water at about 4:30pm and wasn't reported again all day.  By evening the wind had dropped considerably to just a very gentle breeze and it was suggested that perhaps the albatross needed more wind in order to get airborne and so was forced to drift all night. Whatever the case, the bird was back on the cliffs next morning. 

Will I go again? Absolutely guaranteed I will if I get the opportunity. Hopefully it will become an annual pilgrimage over the next few years, just another good reason to visit this wonderful reserve.

It's always a problem photographing a bird in full sunlight when it has black wings but also some very white bits. The white just burns out all of the detail on the head. 

There were lots of puffins at Staple Newk, but almost all of them were flying, this is about the only one I saw perched. Evening is usually a good time to see puffins, I remember once spending the evening on the cliffs of Carn Mor, St. Kilda watching puffins returning to their burrows in huge numbers before spending the rest of the night watching petrels and shearwaters doing the same.

Razorbills kept flying into this spot in amongst the flowers. 

I hung around on the cliff top until nearly 8pm before finally deciding that I needed to get home. What a great experience to watch this wonderful bird in such a fabulous location. I still think it's amazing that I can get a photo like this on my phone at 500m distance!