About Bempton Cliffs
A trip to Yorkshire should always tempt you to visit RSPB Bempton Cliffs. Bempton is a well-known twitchers paradise with lots of birds nesting and flying around the cliff tops and surrounding area.
We hadn’t been since 2016 and were looking forward to a revisit. I was excited as my photography gear today is significantly more capable than back then.
The cliffs are predominantly occupied by gannets but razorbills, puffins and gulls amongst other birds can also be spotted.
We arrived early afternoon and made our way from the visitor centre down the pathway to the cliffs.
There are plenty of places to stop and photograph the birds from the cliff top itself as well as multiple viewing platforms all along the cliff top.
Photography set up
Photography-wise, the settings for BIF (Birds-in-Flight) are effectively the widest aperture the lens can achieve up to f/5.6 or f/6.3, fast shutter speed to capture the bird in focus while in flight.
Usually, you set ISO to Auto unless you can judge conditions and set it yourself because sometimes the auto doesn’t quite work. I find that it can underexpose in certain conditions. If the weather conditions / light is stable, you may as well set it yourself.
Once you’ve got your settings set and you’ve rattled of some test shots, and you’re adding panning technique in as well, it’s then ‘spray and pray’!
It’s very common, especially with birds with white colouring that some negative exposure compensation is needed to avoid the white parts of the photographed bird being ‘blown out’, I.e. The white parts being so over-exposed that you lose all detail.
Shots captured during the visit
I had over 2,000 images captured during the visit. When you’ve got 20 frames per second at your fingers tips, it’s too easy to get trigger happy!
I’ve grouped the best of the crop into shot types. First up are pairs or groups of gannets.
Next up are birds in flight shots or shots catching the gannets landing.
There are always opportunities to grab a shot of a gannet with nesting material in its beak or giving a pointed stare.
A closer look at the capture below shows a gannet with a strange eye. Apparently this is a sign of surviving bird flu!
And while Bempton is usually all about the gannets (and occasionally puffins), there are also razorbills and gulls.
There’s something very addictive about shooting at these locations because it’s very satisfying catching a good shot and you want to just stay there as long as you can, or at least until either you memory cards or batteries are exhausted.
There were not a lot of puffins with the only sighting of one with its head in a hole in the clifftop.
Pro photographer spot
On the way back to the car park, I passed landscape pro photographer Nigel Danson with wildlife photographer Rachel Bigsby. They were deep in conversation and had walked past me by the time I realised. I knew a sighting was likely as Nigel had said the week before he’d be in the area having a go at wildlife photography.
It felt too tragic to jog back and say Hello and I probably wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. A photography club friend of mine who also follows Nigel online made me howl with laughter though when I messaged him to say I’d seen Nigel. He replied back and said “Did he recognise you?”
Final thoughts
Bempton Cliffs is always worth a visit if you’re in the area. It’s a superb location with guaranteed photo opportunities for birds and especially birds in flight.
Highly recommended!
Onwards and upwards…