Staple Neuk - Bempton Cliffs
Visiting a sea bird colony is always an attack on all of your senses. Usually, first there is an attack on your sense of vision. Where to look? How do you capture such a complex and magnificent vision? What was that? Which birds are where? It takes a few minutes just to overcome the sense awe you feel. Whilst you are doing this the next attack on your senses sinks in. The smell and taste of the colony. Once experienced never forgotten. An intoxicating mix of fish and bird droppings. The air becomes thick with this acrid atmosphere. It imbues your mind so much that whenever you see a photograph of a bird colony suddenly you can taste and smell the colony all over again.
Gannet over Bempton Cliffs
As this sensory overload takes hold another layer is added. The noise. Usually it is the painful wailing of the Kittiwake, birds that seems to be in constant pain. Of course they are not it is just the impression that their cry has on you saturated senses. As your hearing settlers down you start to strain for different cries in the wind. You identify a cry and make an identification only to realise that it was a trick of the wind. If you are near a gannet colony then there is the endless bickering of neighbours who are protecting their few centimetres of barren cliff. You stand and wonder how on earth are they able to cling onto such a precipitous nest site? Of course to the gannet there is nothing wrong with this. It is just what gannets do.
Gannet looking for nesting material
Then overhead you feel the wind rush as a Fulmar rushes by. You look up and the bird gives you an imperious glance as glides effortless on the updrafts. At that moment you know what it is like to see an angel floating in the clouds.
Gannet
Then at sea you notice more birds. They bob and heave with the waves. A small fishing boat slowly makes its way past the colony and you see a flock of screaming gulls following its progress to port. If you have come to the colony on a boat these are the same gulls that hitch a lift on the captain's cabin, all the time their bright beady eyes scanning the horizon for the next feeding opportunity.
The first time you visit a sea bird colony it is unforgettable. Something that makes you want come back again and again. Each time you are never disappointed. Each time seeing something new. Then you realise that this an ephemeral experience. Once the chicks have flown the colony empties until the next summer. You have to move your attention to the autumn and winter natural spectacles. All the time waiting for the days to lengthen so that you can experience the assault on the sense once more.
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