Puffins at Bempton Cliffs in YorkshirePuffins at Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire
Puffins at Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire

Puffins return to Bempton Cliffs on Yorkshire coast to guard their eggs

Thousands of puffins have returned to Bempton Cliffs on the Yorkshire coast as they carefully watch over their eggs.

During breeding season, the colourful birds will lay a single egg, and then both parents share the responsibility of incubating it - which usually lasts for a month to a month and a half.

Once hatched, the fledgling will take between a month and two months to become ready to leave the nest. The adult puffins tend to leave their children very shortly before the youngsters are ready to fly the nest.

Bempton Cliffs is the perfect place for the birds to breed, with the rocky cliffs providing plenty of cracks and cavities for them to watch over their young.

This year, the RSPB is recruiting puffin trackers to work at the cliffs, to have a greater understanding of the life of the birds.

Bempton Cliffs is home to some of the UK's largest and most impressive seabird colonies, and also attracts rare visitors such as Europe's only black-browed albatross, Albie, who arrived at the site in March.

With their comical gait and brilliantly coloured breeding season bills, puffins are among the most popular sights in the UK’s coastal nature reserves.

The first puffin of the season was spotted in mid-March, but there are now expected to be around 4,000 of the birds at the cliffs as breeding and hatching season kicks in.

Bempton Cliffs is the perfect place for the birds to breed, with the rocky cliffs providing plenty of cracks and cavities for them to watch over their young.

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