Seabirds spread their wings after being saved from ravages of extreme weather

A LUCKY few survivors among hundreds of dead or dying seabirds have been released back into the wild after one of the worst starts to the breeding season in years.
Todd German, a senior aquarist at Scarborough Sea Life Centre, holding a puffin, and with a razorbill, right, before releasing them from Bempton Cliffs, near Bridlington yetserday.Todd German, a senior aquarist at Scarborough Sea Life Centre, holding a puffin, and with a razorbill, right, before releasing them from Bempton Cliffs, near Bridlington yetserday.
Todd German, a senior aquarist at Scarborough Sea Life Centre, holding a puffin, and with a razorbill, right, before releasing them from Bempton Cliffs, near Bridlington yetserday.

The seabirds - five guillemots and a razorbill and puffin - were released at RSPB Bempton, after being found emaciated on beaches near Scarborough, following weeks of strong winds and freezing temperatures.

Hundreds of other birds - including 500 puffins - didn’t make it.

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The guillemots had lost a third of their body weight and needed careful refeeding at Scarborough Sea Life centre.

Keith Clarkson, from RSPB Bempton, said: “It couldn’t have gone better.

“All of the birds flew off successfully, most going out to sea, apart from one guillemot, which turned round and landed on a breeding ledge below us and started preening itself as if nothing had ever happened.

“Things do seem to be picking up and we are hoping that over the next week or so there will be a mass arrival back to the cliffs.”

In all around 800,000 creatures perished.

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These included around 150,000 velvet swimming crabs, 10,500 edible crabs, 2,000 common lobsters and a staggering 635,000 mussels died in just one 10-mile stretch from Barmston to Bridlington in last month’s extreme weather.

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