Four seasons start to overlap at a crossroads in bird world

AT THIS time of year in Filey Bay, things start to get really fascinating for casual birdwatchers like me, as well as for serious species-ticking twitchers.

It’s when all four seasons start to overlap, ornithologically, and the rock peninsula of Filey Brigg – which looks like a quickly abandoned attempt to build a causeway out into the North Sea – becomes a bit of a crossroads in the bird world.

Of all my usual optics-totting haunts, this is my favourite place to spend a whole day.

Not only is there the promise of – for me – a rarely seen bird, offshore there are as many arrow-like gannets diving into the sea as I care to watch.

Another factor is the easy availability of great fish and chips, bacon butties and ice creams. Despite all that fresh air and exercise, birdwatching at Filey can be bad for the waistband.

Here in late July and early August, some birds are finishing off the important business of breeding they began in early spring, and on the north side of the Brigg some kittiwakes still nest on the cliffs.

Recently departed from the cliffs between Filey and Cayton Bay are the hundreds of the guillemots, razorbills and puffins that have been displaced from the vertiginous chalk ledges of Bempton across the bay by the constantly expanding colony of gannets.

Being the biggest mainland site for breeding seabirds in the UK – 298,054 birds are fledging over 113,000 young according to the RSPB’s latest figures – Bempton’s nesting population tends to make its presence felt across the full length of Filey Bay.

While most have now left their nests, many continue to fish along the coast before dispersing to deep-sea locations for the winter.

On just one day almost 500 puffins were seen on the move from the Brigg, perhaps birds from across the bay or from the Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast. All will probably be gone from the bay by the middle of August.

Also starting to head south are small parties of sandwich terns and their newly fledged young from long-established breeding sites in Northumberland.

Their numbers will increase as August progresses, with the birds forming roosts on sands at the quieter southern end of the bay.

Day-trippers like me are thankful for the people at Filey Bird Observatory, who keep a constant vigil on bird movements along the coast, and since the middle of July they have detected the first stirrings of autumn bird migration.

A week ago 244 whimbrels – the rarer sibling of the curlew – were spotted heading south, as well as 31 sanderlings, a tiny wader which breeds above the arctic circle and spends the winter in the UK.

They can be seen scurrying around the edge of the tide in Filey Bay feeding on small crustaceans and molluscs stirred up by the surf.

Offshore, parties of Manx shearwaters have been spotted flying south from Scotland, another sign at the Filey Brigg bird crossroads that winter is on its way.