Riding East for Puffins

Countryside Column for 6 June.

Puffin’ Over The Cliffs of East Riding

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Puffin in the wild, and since they were on the menu I thought it would be worth a go.  No, no, not food menu, rather the list of touristy things to see in the East Riding.  We’d gone for a couple of days ostensibly for an old school-friend’s birthday.  But Myrtle made it perfectly clear that if she was going to endure the five hour car journey then she would want some pretty strenuous cliff walks as recompense.

She was fine at the immaculate B&B in Filey but we didn’t find elsewhere in the town terribly canine friendly. By-laws demanded dogs be kept on lead.  Understandable, perhaps, around manicured municipal flower-beds on the Crescent, but quite unnecessary in the big open space of Glen Gardens. 

A short distance out of town, though, the Cleveland Way sets off along the coast from the country park.  This got Myrtle’s seal of approval while giving me kittens.  I have a fair head for heights and enjoyed looking over the vertiginous cliffs to the sea pounding the rocks below.  But enjoyment for a lively Springer/Collie seemed to consist of running full pelt as close to the crumbling edge as possible.

It was here that I first sighted a species relatively rare in Kent and Sussex but ubiquitous in Yorkshire. The female usually sports bright Goretex-like plumage of red or pink while the male is in dark green and invariably carries powerful binoculars or a long monocular mounted on monopod.

They are gregarious creatures often found in groups excitedly chattering about obscure sightings. Certainly there was no shortage of them at Flamborough Head where I’d been told I’d also find plenty of Puffins.  It’s true there were thousands if not millions of seabirds clinging precariously to ledges and crevasses on the high cliff faces. But Puffins there were none.  I eventually plucked up courage to ask a Greater Goretexed Twitcher where best to see one, expecting scorn at such a touristy question.  But he happily advised taking the path in completely the opposite direction.  It proved a fruitless sojourn however and later we were told Bempton Cliffs a few miles further up the coast was THE place for Puffins. Even Myrtle was too tired and wet to venture further.  But in the car park a youngster posed for a picture with a large fluffy toy Puffin.  So all was not lost.