Qualla: Bempton Cliffs

Bempton Cliffs: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Corser, CC BY-SA 2.0 uk. From a distance the cliffs look as if they have caught fire. The cliff faces, hundreds of feet of white chalk, are smudged grey-white with thousands upon thousands of birds, and what looks like smoke is the constant churning movement of seabirds in flight - gannets, kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars, the occasional puffin. The sound carries for miles. The smell of guano carries almost as far. From January through August every year, this strip of Yorkshire coast becomes one of the largest seabird colonies in mainland Britain, and the only place in England where gannets - the country's largest seabirds, with six-foot wingspans - breed on the mainland.

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Image: Tom Corser | CC BY-SA 2.0 uk

Bempton Cliffs: Why the Birds Come Here

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kognos, CC BY-SA 4.0. The cliffs at Bempton are made of hard chalk. They run roughly ten kilometres from Flamborough Head north toward Filey, in places over a hundred metres high. The chalk resists erosion well enough to hold the cliff faces upright, but it weathers into a tangle of ledges, shelves, a...

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Image: Kognos | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bempton Cliffs: The Only Mainland Gannet Colony

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit caroline legg, CC BY 2.0. Northern gannets breed in just a handful of British colonies - mostly remote sea-stacks like Bass Rock and St Kilda, where they are safe from land predators. Bempton is the exception. The cliffs are so high and the chalk so sheer that even foxes cannot reach the ledges, so the ga...

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Image: caroline legg | CC BY 2.0

Bempton Cliffs: Puffins Under Pressure

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Lumb, CC BY-SA 2.0. Atlantic puffins are the colony's celebrities, the birds people drive hours to see. Bempton's population - around 958 birds, 450 breeding pairs at the latest count - is harder to spot than at most UK sites, because they nest deep in rock crevices rather than in the more visible b...

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Image: Tony Lumb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Bempton Cliffs: What the RSPB Built

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charlie Marshall from Bristol UK, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. The cliffs have been an RSPB reserve since 1969, and the organisation has built fenced walkways and several observation points right at the cliff edge - close enough to look down into the nests, far enough back from the unfenced sections to stop visitors testing the geology with ...

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Image: Charlie Marshall from Bristol UK, United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0