Post 413 - 30 days wild - Day 2 - A wild day on the coast!

Hey everyone, well today is the second day of the wonderful 30 days wild.

I hope you managed to get out and do something wild today. I thought today that I would do something out on the wonderful Yorkshire coastline.

Well what a day to pick! This is was one wild day - so windy where I was which meant I didn't see as much as I'd hoped to but it was still a great day out.

So where did I go? Well I thought I'd visit another +Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reserve as well as dropping in on an old favourite.

Our family headed out to Flamborough Head and took a long ride through the gorgeous North Yorkshire countryside. The first place we dropped into was the Living Seas Centre where I had a nice chat to the manager Antony Hurd. It was nice to get this tweet off him.

Great to meet @nerdboy386 this morning on his @YorksWildlife nature reserve challenge. Let us know what you find in the rockpools

— YWT Living Seas (@YWTLivingSeas) 2 June 2016

Esme checks out Limpets

I'd done my research before I left on the tide times. Low tide was at 10 and we had got there around 11.30 so I was surprised when I got there that most of the rock pools were already covered. That was a shame as Dad had been wanting to find some Sea Squirts. Still we had a look round and Esme, our dog, had a good sniff at the Limpets. It was great to be by the sea even on a day with such powerful winds. I watched a few Sandmartins going to and from their nests, there must have been about 80 tunnels in the cliff face.

Puffin in flight at Bempton

Next we moved on the Lighthouse and then on the the North Cliffs, all part of the Flamborough Cliffs Nature Reserve to see what was around. It was very exposed and hard to see anything as the wind kept threatening to blow you off the cliffs. It was hard to keep the binoculars or telescope still in the wind. There were a lot of Guillemots around, Kittiwakes too. The biggest surprise was on the way back to the car when a lovely Skylark jumped up out of the grass a couple of feet from us and hovered singing its heart out just above us. So beautiful. It stayed like that foe a little while before the wind got the better of it and it flew further off. I'll have to go back as I'd heard there was more to see including Manx Shearwaters which I want to see. I just have to see the bird who's name is Puffinus puffinus but sadly not today.

A Tree Sparrow at Bempton

Then we headed up to RSPB Bempton Cliffs. just as windy here but the viewing platforms mean you aren't going to be blown off a cliff while birdwatching! When I got to the visitor centre I was really please to meet one on the people I know off of twitter - Chris Calow. He was really nice and we talked about what was about on the reserve but, in general, he was (and has always) really supportive. Thank you Chris! After talking to Chris I had a walk out to the cliffs, seeing a flock of Tree Sparrows on the way.

Gannet in flight

Gannet collecting plants for its nest.

At the cliffs I saw loads of different species such as Razorbills, and Kittiwakes. But the two things that I was most looking forward to see were the Gannets and the Puffins. I love seeing the Puffins just because of their amusing nature just to dig holes and basically just ferret around with big orange beaks...I also love how they fly it seems so hap hazzard, well it certainly did today in the strong wind.  I also love the Gannets because of how beautiful they are, they have no markings on their perfectly white bodies, completely clear, and the way that they glide around so gracefully makes them definitely one of my favourite birds. I tried for ages to get some good shots of them in flight, they seemed to be able to use the wind much better than the Puffins.

A lone Hoverfly - how it could fly
on such a windy day was amazing! 

One thing I was quite surprised to see was a lonely Hoverfly on an umbellifer. Not identified the species yet but I think it did well not to end up in Norway!

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.