Birding trip

An exhausting but enjoyable round trip sorting out a few longstanding gaps in my birding life list. Started on Tuesday and headed for Rutland water to see the ospreys (nesting for the first time in public view) and for a bonus a wonderful view of a white barn owl across the fields, then a quick stop at Durham then onto Bridlington for a few days to visit Bempton Cliffs and Flambrorough Head. This is an enormous outcrop of chalk facing the north sea, completely inacessible unless you're a sea bird, and eroded into thousands of ledges and crevices, a sort of high rise seabird heaven. You can view from the top from an RSPB watchpoint and this is spectacular enough looking at thousands of kittywakes and gannets perched only a few feet away but even better is a trip on the Yorkshire Belle round the headland by sea. This was totally amazing - we were surrounded by literally thousands of seabirds, gullimots, razorbills, puffins, gannets, kittiwakes - they were in the water and acted just like pigeons in the street - getting out of the way at the last minute, in the air over the boat, everywhere. The boat pulls right into the cliffs so you can seen them close to, every single ledge has birds. The gullimots look like penguins all lined up huddled together facing the cliff while the gannets are neatly spaced out. The puffins 'look just like their picture' as someone said on the trip. They really do, they're like toys, almost impossible to believe they're real.