Razorbill (Alca torda)
Bempton Cliffs, East Yorkshire, UK, May 2019.
Nikon D7200, Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6
f/6.3, 1/800s, ISO 500, 420mm
f/6.3, 1/400s, ISO 500, 480mm
f/6.3, 1/1600s, ISO 800, 380mm
f/6.3, 1/2000s, ISO 800, 500mm
f/6.3, 1/640s, ISO 500, 420mm
Razorbills are truly fasinating birds and I think one of the most handsome. Their contrasting colouration and their bright yellow mouths and strong bills give them a really distinctive look.
They are member of the Auk family and are also known as the Razor-billed Auk, or Lesser Auk. Their closest relative is the now sadly exitinct Great Auk.
Like the other members of the Auk family, they spend most of their time out at sea, coming back to land for the breeding season. If you are ever lucky enough to watch them underwater you will see them using their wings as propulsion, in the same manner as a penguin.
Razorbills can be found around the coastlines of the North Atlantic and they generally live in large colonies. The Razorbill chooses only one partner for life and they only have one chick per year. They also don't start to breed until they are at least 3 years old and sometimes not until they are 5. They can also skip a breeding season as they get older. All this makes them very vulnerable to population decline.
I took these pictures at Bempton Cliffs on the East Yorkshire coast.
Bempton and the surrounding Flamborough Head host England's largest onshore seabird breeding colonies, many species and over 300,000 birds.
There can be as many as 20,000 pairs of Razorbills during the breeding season making it one of their largest colonies in the world.
From a photography stand point they can be a bit tricky.
Like any black and white bird getting good exposure is always going to be a compromise.
It is also difficult to get their eyes to standout from the surrounding feathers.
However, they do seem to like to pose, they often display engrossing behaviours, and that yellow mouth makes an amazing contrast to
the black head.
Fibre is probably good for you, if you have a normal gut.
I've found that everyone's IBS is different and reacts differently to different foods or environmental factors such as stress. So generalisations are often a good place to start, if you're newly diagnosed, but over time you will learn what works for you. That said, it sounds like you've made good progress, so do what's right for you and your wellbeing.
Take from the following what you will.
I was diagnosed as a child, a very long time ago, with IBS-C and told to eat lots of fibre.
The problem is fibre draws water into the intestines which, in theory should make your stool easier to pass. Sounds great if you don't shit regularly.
However, if you have a constriction caused by a spasm/contraction of the muscles in your gut - the cramps- you just end up with a very large ball of indigestible fibre and water and shit being forced against the spasming muscles and lots of pain and bloating.
Eventually, the cramps relax and you get explosive diarrhea. Yay!
As a generalisation; I have heard from people with IBS-D that any fibre just causes irritation of their intestines and bowel and just more explosive shitting and cramps than normal.
Either way it seems like it should be avoided.
For what it's worth I found four things helpful for my IBS, lower my carb and sugar intake. Low fibre, dark chocolate and acupuncture.
The dark chocolate was a pure accidental discovery. I was being a pig many Christmases ago and ate a lot of dark chocolates in one sitting. The next day I had a normal dump. I connected the dots and as an ex-scientist I was interested so I did some reading and found dark chocolate contains a good dose of bioavailable magnesium. That gives me the benefit of fibre without the physical mass or irritation it causes. I tried magnesium supplements but they didn't have the same effect. I eat one small bar of 70-85% Coco solids a day. My wife, who has IBS-D, just gets the shits from eating it, which is perhaps not surprising.