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| What you mean, where is it? A heavy crop, with Bempton Cliffs (where it'd just launched from) in the background. It's bang in the middle of the frame. Click on image to enlarge.... |
You absolute beauty! just shy of an hour ago, the phone buzzes with news of a Black-browed Albatross across the bay at the Bempton Cliffs gannetry, having then apparently flown towards Filey... scrambling gear, car keys, trying not to hit old people in the road and within about four minutes I was screeching to a halt at the clifftop car park on the Country Park; a quick scan of the bay and then a sprint to the end of Carr Naze, where the nervous, more systematic scanning began.....
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| ....or check out this even heavier crop, click to enlarge, and tell me that's not the greatest Albatross pic you'll ever see. |
Anxious minutes passed, my good friends Ana and Charlotte turned up, news followed of it back on the cliff.... stick or twist? After having a dramatic but ultimately successful experience with what was likely the same bird at Bempton a couple of years ago, there was no hesitation.
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| Heavy, heavy crop (middle-right) with both Flamborough Lighthouses in the background.... |
With the added impetus of having history with this species here on my Filey patch (a story for another time), it was time to focus and wait. Soon after, more news of it apparently leaving the cliffs again - or was it an accidental repeat message in the mess of communications? - so stay on target.... and then, as if in slow motion and soft focus, into my Harpia field-of-view it drifts, as if it was meant to be here (and not in another hemisphere entirely). You can probably imagine my reaction....
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| ... and an even heavier crop of the same image |
Great, perfect 'scope views, and I somehow even managed to shoot at nothing and get it through the camera too! These are genuinely both the worst and some of the best photos I've ever published here, so stoked am I to have captured this magical beast as it cruised past landmarks that are part of my DNA.
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| The Brigg buoy meets a BBA (far right, mid-way down) |
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| h.a.p.p.y |
