The Gannet King

Last night I made a snap decision; I was going to get up at the crack of early morning and drive up to Bempton to hopefully clap eyes on the returning Black-browed Albatross. This is the same bird (or at least almost certainly so) that has now popped up for a third consecutive year and likely has been the same bird observed previously along the east coast (in 2017?). It shouldn't be anywhere near the UK of course, and should be in the southern hemisphere. There was thought to be just the one knocking about in the north seas since 2014, also being seen off of Denmark and Heligoland Germany, but yesterday both the Bempton bird and the German bird were reported?!

Either way, there is precedent for wayward Black-browed Albatrosses hanging around over many consecutive years in Northern Hemisphere Gannet colonies; the one (Albert) at Bass Rock, Hermaness and then Sula Sgeir for c40years from 1967, and one for c34years on the Faroe Islands a century earlier before it was shot. That one was referred to as súlukongur (The Gannet King in Faroese).

I know I should be getting up stupidly early, driving in the dark and arriving at places at first light for the best chance of success, but my aged body just can't do it these days. I left home at 07:30 having cleared a bit of frost off of the car, and arrived at 10:30 to glorious sunshine, a bit of warmth and masses of people.

The albatross had recently been knocking about at Staple Newk, a good 20 minutes or so walk south-east from the visitor centre. The view above shows the headland with an arch visible, and the view below is looking down on that rocky protrusion from the viewing platform.

Almost predictably, given my tardiness ....

The bird was present early morning, and was seen heading off to sea at c08:45. I knew that meant I'd have to wait a while, just not how long that while would be. But I was confident that it had just nipped off to feed and would be back. I spent a good couple of hours watching, chatting to a couple of blokes and pointing the camera at other bits. The story was then added to: before leaving and buggering off seaward, it had been pecked/stabbed by a Gannet and was seen to be bleeding from it's flank above the leg .... At that point my confidence ebbed a little.

I headed back to the visitor centre for a quick coffee and a pee. Surely if it came back, it would be on show when I got back to the platform. It wasn't.

More loitering and chatting; a bloke I'd been talking to pretty much felt obliged to leave as his wife was loitering with intent. As soon as he'd gone, an optics-less woman and child stepped into his place to look for Puffins. I pointed one out, just as a young photographer next to me muttered 'Albatross'. I looked up, got on it immediately and felt a wave of euphoria. Milliseconds later, whilst clamouring to get my camera turned on, I turned around a bellowed 'ALBATROSS' as loud as I could muster - and saw the bloke who'd just left and many others come hurtling back to the platform.

Wow. Absofuckinglutely awesome watching this enigma soar around, repeatedly trying to land and then going around again for more attempts. It was on view for a good 10 - 15 minutes, but then seemed to drop in and land out of sight.

I warn you, multiple shots and clips follow. There are certainly much better shots from proper photographers with much better camera rigs than my point-and-shoot bridge, but they're not my shots and on that basis are irrelevant to my blog.

I tweeted a quick update, including that the bird was now out of view from the platform, and almost immediately it was out again. Same routine, majestic flight and dithering about landing, before again dropping out of view from the platform.

At that point I headed back towards the centre, stopping at the next platform looking back towards Staple Newk to see if it could be seen. As I did so, it started flying around again but this time appeared to land in a position that would be in view .... so I walked back.

I now felt like I had properly enjoyed the bird; superb close flight views and good views of it perched - although it still didn't quite looked settled and seemed properly agitated about the Gannets. I walked off towards the visitor center for the final time. A quick stop to look back towards Staple Newk again, and the albatross was still in view on the same ledge - briefly - and it was back in the air. I expected the same routine, but it seemed to be coming closer. And closer. I dropped my bins down and realised it really was coming close - literally over our heads and heading north. I tracked it along the coast until out of view over a headland heading towards Filey at c15:45.