Huge Yorkshire seabird colony is looking at its very best

For lovers of wildlife, the coast offers one of the region's most spectacular sights of the summer - and one that is in peak season right now.
PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo.PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo.
PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo.

These images, taken at the RSPB’s Bempton Cliffs nature reserve near Bridlington, show just some of the thousands of gannets and their chicks that have taken to nesting on rugged cliff ledges.

More than 250,000 seabirds flock to the chalky headlands to find a mate and raise their young each year, including an estimated 13,400 pairs of breeding gannets this summer.

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According to the RSPB, most nests now have chicks but they remain quite young and have yet to fledge.

There are up to another 2,000 young, non-breeding gannets that are hanging out on the cliffs and circling around to get the lie of the land and once they reach the age of five or six, they will start breeding themselves.

Gannets are thriving as a species, and not just at Bempton. Versatile birds, they can fly a round trip of 400km foraging for food with relative ease.

Together with puffins, guillemots, kittiwakes and razorbills they form the largest mainland seabird colony in the UK on the Flamborough and Filey coast.

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Keith Clarkson, seabird census project manager at RSPB Bempton Cliffs, said: “Every year our senses come alive with the sights, sounds and smells of hundreds of thousands of seabirds that turn Bempton Cliffs into a bustling hive of activity – there are few more striking wildlife spectacles in the UK that fill your senses like the seabirds at Bempton.”

The busy breeding season lasts between April and August each year.