Northern Exposure

If you look at the map in my previous post, you'll notice an area of very high terrain along the northern coast. This is an area known as High Bluffs, 1012 foot cliffs that drop straight into the sea. The perfect place for hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of seabirds to nest.

Today was the first time I've been up to High Bluffs since 2005 (it seems odd that I missed it last year, but....well, last year was a bit off on several levels). The weather cooperated stellarly, meaning that it was beautiful and clear as we left that house and fogged in about 10 minutes after our arrival at the top. The good news is that it cleared off about half an hour later. The wind, however, did not leave with the fog. There was a steady north wind blowing in the mid 20 mph zone and gusting up to 30 or so. Nikolai and I were intending to take lots of pictures while we were up there, and we certainly fulfilled that intention. Let me tell you, when you're trying to get a crisp picture of a bird being buffetted by that kind of wind while attempting to hold your camera steady in that same wind, you get a lot of frames that contain half a wing, a head, or just nothing. You'll notice Nikolai expressing his disgruntlment with the wind difficulty.

After approximately 700 frames between the two of us, we managed to get one or two clean shots.
Kittiwakes are absolutely incredible fliers, and their ability to negotiate high winds without smashing into each other or the cliff is a constant source of amazement to me.

Most of the birds are heavily into nest building at this point, although a good number are now sitting on eggs.

We stayed for several hours taking pictures - until our trigger fingers had gone completely stiff. But despite our chilled fingers and the struggles of those flying, the most pathetic figures by far were the birds sitting on the cliff, their wings and feathers being flung forward by the wind.