Foul-mouthed Fulmars

Thursday's Guardian Country Diary is about the fulmars that nest on the magnesian limestone cliffs at Dawdon on the Durham coast. There are only a few pairs - fulmars don't nest at the high densities that some other seabirds favour. At this time of year they spend a lot of time on their nesting ledges, engaged in their chattering calls and mutual preening, strengthening pair bonds, and when they're not doing this ...

...... they just glide serenely along the cliffs. I could watch fulmars for hours - just a few shallow  beats of those long, narrow wings and then they glide effortlessly. They seemed to fly in a regular circuit, out over the sea then back inland, rising on the updraughts to skim along the top of the cliffs and then swoop down and sail past their nesting ledge. 

 If you stand still they fly past a little closer with every pass and have a good look at you, checking you out. 

This pair clearly had the best nesting ledge - a prime location with a relatively broad platform in the cliff face for their single egg, with a cavity behind and a superb view of the whole beach.

Then the peace of the afternoon was interrupted by this individual - a singleton, apparently without a mate, that had been flying circuits along the beach, passing closer to the nesting ledge with every pass until it finally decided to pay them a visit.

And that shattered the tranquillity of the afternoon. Here he is receiving a beakful of abuse from the sitting tenants, with the resident male unwilling to let the interloper within mutual preening distance of his mate.

So he left to resume gliding his solitary circuits of the beach. If you could translate what those two birds in the background were saying, it would be unrepeatable on a family blog

More fulmar pictures here

Because they can .....

Back in 2005 I spent a morning in April photographing fulmars on the cliffs south of Craster on the Northumberland coast. I've long been fascinated by these birds, with their apparently effortless gliding, using the updraft created by cliffs and onshore breezes. They'll spend hours flying around in wide circles, skimming the edge of the cliff and then turning away into a wide arc out to sea, then back to repeat the performance. 

 Why do they fly so much, to no apparent purpose, when they could just perch and survey the scenery? Maybe it's just because they can, because they are as exhilarated by flight as I am by watching them.

Their flight seems almost effortless, with shallow wingbeats followed by long, stiff-winged glides. Sometimes, as they glide past, you can see the turbulence, from air flowing over their wings, lifting and ruffling the smaller wing feathers.

Sometimes they'll fly towards a cliff, lower their legs and touch the rock, they turn and glide away again ....

... or sometimes hang in the air, almost stationary for a moment, tail feathers splayed and cocked up, legs lowered, on the verge of stalling, before turning and racing away to skim the sea surface.

Those long, narrow, high aspect ratio wings are the prototype for every glider .

I've almost convinced myself that fulmars enjoy showing off. Often, if you stand on the top of a cliff, they'll circle around and repeatedly glide past you, just a few metres away, and will turn their heads to look at you as they pass. Maybe they're as curious about me as I am about them.

For all their solitary flying, during the early part of the breeding season fulmars  indulge in a lot of vocal interaction which sounds like chuckling, when they're choosing nest sites and pair-bonding.

This kind of interaction, facing one another with gaping beaks and seemingly trying to shout each other down, is common behaviour in spring.

You can see clearly here the peculiar beak with the tubular nostril which gives the fulmar family the name 'tubenoses', and also the claw-like tip to the beak which you can also see in this photograph of a skull. 

At this time of year there is, inevitably, a feeling of regret that summer has passed but also a remembrance of all the natural events that will begin again next spring - when fulmars return to their cliff edge nest sites.