Return to RSPB Bempton Cliffs
With the poor weather continuing it was important to look for locations that would escape the worst of the rain. Looking on the Met Office weather app it showed that for Saturday morning at least it might be a good option to head to Bempton Cliffs.
So waking up at around 4am and getting myself sorted out I was out of the house and beginning the journey up to the Yorkshire coast. Leaving this early gave me the opportunity to arrive at around 7:30am , and as it turned out that was a very accurate prediction.
Pulling in to the car park just after 7:30am , and getting my camera gear out , placing the camera around my neck and ensuring it was switched on I headed past the visitor centre and down to the cliffs. Knowing from a previous visit that Puffins were most likely to be seen to the more Northern edge of the cliffs I steadily made my way in the direction of the last viewing platform. My excitement was short lived at this point however as no Puffins were visible. Plenty of Gannets and Razorbills were about with the former of these also circling the skies. Still at this time I just watched noting where the various birds were taking off and landing and observing how the light was catching the cliff face.
After a while I decided to head to the Southern edge of the reserve, past all of the other platforms to reach a point where the light was good and the Gannets were coming close enough in flight to get some decent images. Another photographer already had a better position so I took up my slot and after initially watching the path taken in flight by the birds I began to shoot images. The last visit I made here I was using the Canon M50 and the Sigma 170-500mm lens , this time with the R7 and the Canon 100-400mm L MKII would my images improve ?
The focussing speed of the lens combined with the R7’s subject tracking made for a totally different experience capturing birds in flight , not to mention my slightly better approach to choosing which subject to follow and shoot produced much more pleasing results for me and definitely lifted my spirits through the morning.
Moving further along the more Southerly cliffs I once again began to search for Puffins , and still came up short, still it was still early in the day. After a couple of hours I returned to the previous location to shoot more of the Gannets and found a large contingent of Japanese visitors with an impressive array of cameras and lenses capturing images. Once again I found a position that would not interfere with other photographers and took some more images, here trying to capture some behavioural elements. By now I had walked a number of miles and having been awake since 4am I was in need of Coffee , glancing at my watch I was shocked to see it was well after 11am. I strolled up to the now open visitor centre and had a toasted teacake, slice of Yorkshire Parkin and a Hot chocolate to wash it down.
Suitably refreshed and knowing that the weather was due to change in the next couple of hours I made my way back to the more Northerly of the platforms , where a few hours earlier I had begun my visit, and was pleased to find that the Puffins had now begun to appear. At this location now however there was a large crowd , and getting a position to capture good images was difficult, its also difficult as the birds tend to be slightly below the viewing area and right against the cliff face so more challenging for compositions - anyway a good set of record images were taken before the clouds began to appear.
By 1:30pm I knew I was beginning to feel the effects of the early morning start and returned once more to the car park. The journey home was filled with some satisfaction at having made the journey and having at least taken some images to be fairly pleased with.
So where to next week as the weather is supposed to improve ??
