Confrontation

I'd been hoping to launch a dawn raid on RSPB Bempton this morning, but after yesterday's mammoth walk (there weren't actually any mammoths, I should stress, in case you were getting excited), and then having to resort to silicon earplugs overnight to try to drown out the noise of nearby nesting Herring Gulls, which shout at each other all night, I slept right through my alarm. Nevertheless, by getting a serious wiggle on when I did surface, I managed to make it to the cliffs shortly after 7am, which gave me an hour to beetle about a bit before needing to head back to Filey for breakfast and packing, so we could vacate the flat by 10.

Having brought you the gentle and caring side of the Gannet yesterday, I think that today, in the interests of balance, I should show you the more aggressive side of their nature. I have no idea what this dispute was about, since neither bird was nesting, but it started with a squawk and a hefty peck by the lower bird, and escalated rapidly to the point at which the upstairs neighbour decided to get involved as well. My second photo shows the moment when the victim realised it was outnumbered, and though it managed to hold its place on the cliff for a few more seconds, it admitted defeat when the original aggressor got hold of its nearer wing, and tipped itself off the ledge. I was impressed by the stoicism of the Razorbill, which also held its position through most of the dispute while other, more mimsy (or more sensible) auks were departing all around it, but just after I took the second photo it too decided that enough was enough, and took itself off for a walk fly until everything calmed back down.

One other interesting thing about the second image is that it shows that both the attacking birds have the black eyes which scientists tell us correlate with an immune response against H5N1 avian bird flu. This makes them look especially demented, or as if they're so off their heads on stimulants that their pupils have completely dilated, but actually in these birds the pupils are normal, while the irises turn from the usual grey to black - or sometimes partially black, which is especially disturbing because it makes them look cracked. H5N1 devastated seabird breeding colonies around the UK coast just a few years ago, and it was a profound relief to all bird lovers when researchers realised that some individuals were surviving the infection and acquiring immunity to it. I'd guess that it was also a profound relief to them when they felt they'd tested enough Gannets to establish a link between the black irises and an H5N1 antibody response, because since then they'll have been able to count these immune birds from a distance, rather than needing to get close enough to take a blood sample. (If you doubt the ability or willingness of a Gannet to take out a human's eye, read Adam Nicolson's book.) Whatever the real reason for this conflict, I have a little fantasy that the two black-eyed birds felt they were old comrades in arms from the H5N1 wars, and weren't prepared to put up with some uppity youngster with her fancy grey eyes settling down between them.

From Filey R and I drove south to Leeds, where we had a lovely lunch with H (aka Child Two, or Biggest Best Boy). The rest of our journey home was torrid, but I forgot all its irritations when I walked into the kitchen, looked out of the window, and saw a beautiful male Bullfinch standing on the patio wall. He was the first Bullfinch I've seen since 2020, and I'd guess it's at least fifteen years since I last spotted one in the garden. 

This evening I took a look at the Flamborough Bird Observatory daily highlights blog, and realised that R's and my sense of there having been fewer Puffins than usual at Bempton over the past couple of days was probably correct: a report of 1500 Puffins moving past the headland late in the day suggests that their departure from their breeding grounds - usually said to take place in July - has already begun. It'll feel like a long wait till they come back again next spring.