Birds
Seabirds such as Northern Gannets and Atlantic Puffins breed abundantly on the cliffs, and nearby Bempton Cliffs has an RSPB reserve. The shooting of seabirds at Flamborough Head was condemned by Professor Alfred Newton in his 1868 speech to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Local MP Christopher Sykes introduced the Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869, the first Act to protect wild birds in the United Kingdom.
Because it projects into the sea, Flamborough Head attracts many migrant birds in autumn, and also has a key point for observing passing seabirds. When the wind is in the east, many birders watch for seabirds from below the lighthouse, or later in the autumn comb the hedges and valleys for landbird migrants. Flamborough Head also has a bird observatory.
Read more about this topic: Flamborough Head
Famous quotes containing the word birds:
“Even Lust the Master of a hardned Face,
Blushes if thou beest in the place,
To darkness Curtains he retires,
In Sympathizing Night he rowls his smoaky Fires.
When, Goddess, thou liftst up thy wakened Head,
Out of the Mornings purple bed,
Thy Quire of Birds about thee play,
And all the joyful world salutes the rising day.”
—Abraham Cowley (16181667)
“While he hears in every spring
How the birds do chirp and sing:
Or before the hounds in cry
See the hare go stealing by:
Or along the shallow brook,
Angling with a baited hook,
See the fishes leap and play
In a blessed sunny day:”
—Nicholas Breton (15421626)
“Yet this aboundant issue seemd to me,
But hope of Orphans, and un-fathered fruite,
For sommer and his pleasures waite on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute.
Or if they sing, tis with so dull a cheere.
That leaves looke pale, dreading the winters neere.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)