Coastal cliff paths: safety and seabird watching

Why cliff paths reward the careful walker

There is nothing quite like standing on a headland in late spring, with the whole cliff face below you shifting and muttering like a badly tuned radio. Guillemots packed shoulder to shoulder on ledges, razorbills slipping off into the updraught, fulmars gliding past at eye level on stiff, straight wings. It is one of the great spectacles of the British coast, and the reason so many of us walk the cliff paths year after year.

But these are working paths, not promenades. The ground crumbles, the sea cuts in, and the birds are here to raise young, not to perform for us. A little preparation and a bit of restraint will keep you safe, keep the colony calm, and give you far better views than any amount of scrambling about at the edge.

Check the tide tables before anything else

Tide times matter even if you never intend to leave the clifftop. Coastal footpaths often drop into coves or follow beaches at the base of cliffs, and a route that is passable at half tide can be under water two hours later.

• Look up the tide table for the nearest port before you set out, not when you arrive at the steps down.
• Note the times of high water especially. The safest window for low-level exploring is a falling tide, giving you several hours before the water returns.
• Spring tides, near full and new moon, have a much greater range — beaches you have walked before may be unrecognisable.
• Take a photograph of the local tide board or notice at the harbour or car park. Signal is patchy on many cliff sections.
• Never enter a cove or inlet that has only one easy way out unless you are certain of the tide and the escape route.

Reading the cliff edge

The fence line is usually not where the drop begins. It is set back because the ground beyond it is unstable, undercut or cracking. Treat it as your absolute limit, however tempting the view further on.

• Stay behind fences, walls and waymarkers, and do not sit on cliff edges for lunch or photographs.
• Watch for the warning signs of crumbling: cracks in the turf, dark lines of exposed soil, leaning posts, turf that sounds hollow.
• Overhanging soil often extends beyond what you can see. Keep at least a body length back from any lip.
• Be extra cautious after heavy rain and during long dry spells — both loosen the ground in different ways.
• Early and late in the day, note where you are walking: dew and sea mist make chalk and slate paths genuinely slippery.

Tell someone your route and rough return time, and carry a charged phone. If you find yourself in difficulty on the coast, dial 999 and ask for the coastguard.

Watching seabirds without causing alarm

Disturbance is the single biggest impact a visitor can have. When an adult guillemot or razorbill flushes from a ledge, the egg or chick it was shading is suddenly exposed to gulls, crows and the weather — and it may not return for a while.

• Keep to the path, and use binoculars or a spotting scope to look down onto ledges rather than leaning over the edge.
• Stay well back from nesting birds — twenty metres is a sensible minimum, more if adults are already calling or shifting.
• Move slowly and speak quietly. Sudden movement and bright clothing close to a colony do more harm than noise alone.
• Fulmars are wonderful, but give them room. They defend the nest by spitting stomach oil which is sticky, foul-smelling and difficult to remove from clothing or optics.
• Never use playback, and never fly a drone over a cliff. Both cause chaos among breeding birds and drones are best left at home entirely.
• Gulls and skuas may dive at you near colonies. Hold a rucksack or coat over your head, keep walking steadily and do not wave your arms about.

What you are looking at — and how to tell it apart

Guillemots are the chocolate-brown, white-fronted birds crowding the narrowest ledges, often in the striking "bridled" form with a white eye-ring and a thin line running back from it. Razorbills sit lower down and stand more upright, blacker, with a thick blunt bill crossed by a white line. Fulmars look like stocky gulls but fly on stiff, straight wings with long glides, and their tube-nosed bill gives them an oddly stern expression. Add kittiwakes with their dipped-back wings and black legs, shags drying on rocks, and the occasional puffin, and you have a full morning's watching without moving fifty yards.

Watch where you put your feet, too. Puffin and shearwater burrows are easy to collapse, and a collapsed burrow means a lost chick.

Dogs, nests and leaving things as you found them

Between March and August, keep dogs on a short lead near cliffs and colonies. Even a well-behaved dog is a predator as far as a nesting bird is concerned, and a loose dog on a cliff edge is a rescue waiting to happen. Take all litter home, especially fishing line, which tangles birds and wildlife long after you have gone. Do not collect feathers or eggs, or disturb nesting birds at any stage — it is an offence, and it costs the colony far more than the memory is worth. Walk gently, look often, and the cliffs will keep giving you these extraordinary mornings for years to come.