Puffins, Seals and Shags!!

What a day today has been, we decided to go to Flamborough Head as we wanted a little walk around the coast without the hustle and bustle of seaside town, as kids are on school holidays so everywhere seems to be busy.

We set off early, but it still took us nearly 3 hours due to hold ups with road works, this always surprises me as why does the road planners decide to do the works on the busiest times of the year?

Anyhow, we finally got to Flamborough, the old light house standing proud as we entered the village and then the new lighthouse is where we could park the car, it was very very busy...

I've visited this pace numerous times over the years, and one time I got to see puffins there, I kind of remembered where they were, and I said to my girlfriend that we could walk there and see if there are any puffins around, low and behold, our luck was in.

As I was photographing the puffins, I could see something in the water, to our surprise seals had set up home there too.

I have to admit, some of these shots have been cropped very extremely, as even with a 150-600mm lens on, the birds were still quite away from us, I do like the full versions, but I wanted to emphasize what I was shooting, thankfully the enhance feature in lightroom also helps a lot when cropping in like I have.

This pigeon however was really close and I really didn't need to crop this image very much at all.

As I peered over the ledge, I saw a lone bird, completely different to the others that was there, so I snagged a shot of it while it was perched on the cliff edge.

It turns out that this bird is called a Shag, my cousins husband is really into birdwatching and he always tells me what they are as it's something very new to me, on some birdwatching group on facebook, people are saying I was lucky to get a shot this bird as usually they are flying low to the water and are very rarely seen sat on cliff edges.

I took some shots of seals in the water, however you can only really see their heads so didn't bother posting them.
We were so surprised to see them on the beach as well as in the water, thankfully no one can get down to where they are so they can be left in peace with their young pups.

It really was a great day, even though we only spent a couple of hours there before coming home, thankfully most of the road works had gone by the time we set off home.
The only downside to today was the weather, very cloudy, flat light and rather windy on the coast, however, I am still more than happy to have got the shots that I have.

Thank you ever so much for reading my blog, I really hope you enjoy it as well as the pictures.

All the best :-)

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Incredible birds, how I adore such shots)

I love the pictures you took , they are amazing and very colorful ,thank you for sharing

I've been to Flamborough Head many times and never seen the Puffins! Added to my list of places to visit when I come home later in the year. I guess its changed a lot since I was last there. Hopefully this time, I'll get to see them.
Great post and photos as always mate. Best wishes :-)

Thanks ever so much, I'm not sure how much longer the puffins will be there, maybe another month or two, so hopefully you will be back to Flamborough before they go.

Never heard of Puffins, looks like exotic Perot combined with a penguin 😅😅😅 lovely pictures 🙂

Cool shots pal, what lens were you using on your Sony?

Hey mate, was using the sigma 150-600 contemporary, but it's the Canon fit, on me sony using the mc11 adaptor.

Thanks pal, I needs me one of those MC11’s….

I must add some of these shots are heavily cropped even at 600mm, I used the enhance function in light room to being the megapixels back up lol