To Flamborough

July 11, 2024

With only a short six miles ahead of us today we have no regrets over our decision to bike most of the way to Flamborough yesterday when we awaken to another wet morning. The whole day won’t be wet though, so we just need some patience - we don’t need much of a window for the six mile dash from here to there. Ever the optimist, I add a four mile detour to bike out to the two lighthouses and back on the way - nearly enough to let us round up to a ride in the double figures.

The ride is actually quite pleasant, once we’re out the door and moving - particularly the first mile along a pedestrian path along the top of the cliffs, where we pass walkers and their dogs out enjoying the break in the weather. After that we’re back on the main road to the point - not too busy this morning, but when we come to the turnoff to the lighthouse I just keep biking to our hotel. I don’t even bother asking, confident that Rachael will be no more interested in a discretional extra four miles in the cold and wind than I am.

Video sound track: Dragonfly, by Yasmin Williams

This is our second visit to Flamborough Head, another of my favorite spots from our earlier tour and one I’m excited to be returning to. When we were here before we stayed for two nights in a B&B in the tiny village of Flamborough, set back about a mile and a half from the coast. On our layover day we took loop hikes along the top of the cliffs, past the lighthouses and around the point before returning to the village. It was a fine walk with dramatic views along the cliffs, but what is really exceptional here is the thrilling spectacle of the seabirds nesting in the chalk cliffs - thousands of them clinging to and roosting on the cliffs or soaring over the water.

On the way back to the B&B we walked past the North Star Hotel, a nice looking place set just back from the cliffs. I vowed that if we ever came back here we’d stay at this place where we could just walk out the door and look over the cliffs, and so we have. We’re booked here for two nights, a reservation we made almost as soon a we started planning this journey.

We arrive too early to check in to our rooms, but just in time for lunch. There’s some confusion about what to do with the bikes though - we’re led to the laundry room around back and stash them there before heading back to the restaurant where an agitated woman rushes up to say we can’t put them there because that’s the laundry room and they’re still doing the morning wash. There’s some back and forth and rolling of the eyes between this woman and the desk agent, but the upshot is that we can lean them outside against the wall for now until later in the day when they can be locked up inside for the night.

By the time I’m back from relocating and locking together the bikes our room is ready, so we head up there first and change clothes before dropping down for lunch. Soon after we’re done eating I’m off on my own because it looks like I’ve got a 3-4 hour dry window to check out the bird situation. It’s enough time that I decide it’s my best shot at going to Bempton Cliffs five miles to the north, the other famous birding site in the area.

A half hour later I come to the refuge after biking into a headwind most of the way. It’s a bracing ride, especially since I’m not wearing a helmet and have the wind blowing through my hair - not my normal practice, but when I got to the bikes I found that the liner had fallen out of the helmet again - something that often happens, ever since the first time way back in Extremadura when we were with Janos and Suzanne two months ago. Its too loos fitting to ride with without the liner and I don’t want to spare the time to go back up to the room again, so I decide to live dangerously for a few miles.

My heart sinks when I come to the site and see that there’s a ticket window and an admission fee required. I don’t have an admission fee because this didn’t occur to me and I didn’t bring my wallet. There won’t be time to go back and get it now if I don’t want to lose my weather window so I make a sad-faced appeal to the gate monitor and he says I can take a quick peek and can take the bike in with me as long as I push it.

My quick peek takes me about an hour and a half and nets me five new birds for the year, the top five I was hoping to tally up here. Bempton Cliffs are spectacular, both for the birdlife and the cliffs themselves, much higher here than further south at Flamborough.

Looking south from the cliffs at Bempton. Flamborough Point is the farthest land visible in the distance.

#264: Northern gannets. If you look back at the photo above you’ll see these squatters in the lower left, but zooming in you’ll see them flying and lining the cliffs everywhere. There must be thousands of gannets here.

I won’t show you thousands of them, but enough so you can appreciate what a splendid bird they are. For me they rank up there with brown pelicans and flamingos as among the most eye-catching of the birds.

An immature bird. The juveniles are brown, and don’t fully obtain their adult colors for four or five years.

I like this shot because it shows the snazzy greenish racing stripes on their legs.

And I like this shot for obvious reasons.

Gannets are a sharp-looking birds - sharp bills, sharp tails, and sharp wings. It’s fantastic watching them hovering on the wind, something I tried to capture in the video below.

I could watch the gannets all day, but they’re not the whole show here by any means. Every exposed rock face is specked by murres, razorbills and kittiwakes - there must be thousands of them out here too. The real scene stealers though are the randomly scattered puffins, which only give you a quick look when they briefly fly out from the cliffs and then quickly disappear from sight again, almost suggesting giant bumblebees with their chunky bodies and rapid wingbeats.

The view north. Zoom in for a closer look at the cliff.

#266: Black-legged kittiwakes, many of them sheltering their newborns.

#258: Atlantic puffin. Can there be a more improbable looking bird?

What luck, to get such a good look at three of them together.

I try to be inconspicuous when I bike past the entrance attendant on my way out and apparently succeed because I’m not challenged for extending the quick peek I was granted into a ninety minute oglefest. After that it’s a fast five miles back to the hotel, downhill and with the wind at my back this time.

When I’m back Rachael tells me of her own walk along the cliffs. We’d mapped a walk north to Bempton Cliffs for her and I’d thought we might actually meet up while I was out there, but her plan got thwarted again on a trail that dead-ended in a grassy meadow leading to a private mobile home/camper development. From there she turned around and walked the other direction, past the hotel and south toward the lighthouse, and found it much more attractive. If she’s lucky with the weather tomorrow she’ll walk that direction again and continue farther next time.

We’re down in the dining room at six for our second hotel meal of the day, both reasonable but gut-gusting presentations. Afterwards, happy to see that it still looks dry for the next hour or two, I go out again for my own walk south along the cliffs. It looks like tomorrow could be a complete rainout, so this could be my only chance.

The bay at North Landing, just beyond our hotel.

Gannets returning for the night to the Bempton Cliffs.

The old Flamborough light, built of white chalk in 1674.

Our hotel, looking sharp when the sun breaks through toward the end of the day.

Rachael’s not the only one on the team licensed to take shadow selfies. On the right are the old and new lighthouses.

Today's ride: 17 miles (27 km)
Total: 2,668 miles (4,294 km)

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Susan CarpenterWhat a fantastic birding bonanza along the cliffs!
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