Love birds: Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but a simple necklace of wildflowers is enough to woo your sweetheart when you live on the ledges at RSPB Bempton CliffsWhen they mate, they mate for life. But it seems jewellery still doesn’t go amiss when it comes to winning over the opposite sex in the first place.
This gannet was captured apparently giving a necklace of red campion to a potential partner at the Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve in East Yorkshire.
Site manager Ian Kendall said: 'We watched one of these birds bring in the red campion and pass it on to its would-be mate, which looks for all the world to be wearing it as a jewel-like necklace.
‘If the pair return next year, we’ll find out whether it’s paid off.'
Spectacle: The gannet covered Bempton Cliffs are a fantastic site of natural wildlifeThese two lovebirds found each other among the 8,000 or so pairs of gannets that return every year to the RSPB reserve.
The beautiful creatures often decorate their homes with grass, flowers and and even bits of rope and rubbish.
In flight: A gannet often decorates its nest, as well as the occasional partner, with shrubberyThis pair were caught on film in a tender embrace with one sporting a necklace of red campion.
The gannet colony between Bridlington and Filey is at its peak between now and September, and with birds galore on the jaw-dropping cliffs that plunge 400ft straight into the sea, it is one of Britain's best wildlife spectacles.
Yorkshire's gannets are the only ones to breed anywhere in England. In 2009 - the last time there was a full count of the colony - there were 23,000 at Bempton Cliffs and along the coast to Flamborough Head.
source: dailymail
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