The Rottingdean Fulmars Are Back

Regular readers will know that one of my favourite pastimes is watching the fulmars at Rottingdean. It's only a 10 minute drive from here, and they tend to arrive around now and stay until the late summer. The rest of the year they spend out at sea. I headed down there today, in bright sunshine and with not a sign of the recent snow anywhere to be seen. The fulmars are back, and in good number. They are already colonizing the cliff for the breeding season which will start in the next few weeks.

Fulmars are related to the albatross and are tube-nosed sea birds, as you can see in this shot taken this afternoon (the black 'barrel' just on top of the beak).

They are also highly social (and argumentative) and scenes like this are commonplace.

Fulmars are powerful on the wing (they need to be to survive at sea for months on end), but hopeless on dry land. Their legs are weak, and landing on rocky cliffs can be tricky. Hence they spend much of their time flying adjacent to the cliff before attempting a landing. Often they don't quite make it, and circle around for another (or usual several other) attempts.

When they do finally land, they are a picture of domestic harmony.



Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.