Train trip: Filey to Scarborough

Sunny, and mild day, beautiful for a long walk. I take the 8:21 train to Filey and I'm on my walk from the station at 9:30. Jackdaws are picking acorns and cracking them open on roofs. I walk to the Country Park. A Stonechat flies to a tree top. The sea is like glass, not a breeze. It's 9 oC, but the Long-winged Coneheads are basking and calling from the grassy edges of the footpath.

It's acorn season for this Jackdaw on a roof in Filey

Stonechat.

Three basking coneheads.

The walk is about 17 km station to station. I make slow progress at first, entertained by several butterflies and a group of Grey Partridges, about 7, on a field margin.

Grey Partridges.

Grey Partridges.

A pristine male Common Blue damselfly.

The walk traverses a succession of bays and headlands, the scenery is truly breathtaking. Newbiggin Cliffs in the background.

A Grey Seal bobs, resting just offshore.

Gristhorpe Cliff in the distance. Many seals are resting on the rocks just off the tip. 

I think this is a young Grey Seal.

And a Common Seal? There are quite a few seals, Oystercatchers, Little Egrets, Curlew and Turnstones on the rocks. A good spot!

Just by the steps up Cunstone Nab I find some grasshoppers, this is a Lesser Marsh, at one of its northernmost locations.

Small Tortoiseshell.

Hovering Kestrel.

I get to Cayton Bay. There are toilets and refreshments, and wonderful views (top shot). As I look down from the top towards the beach I spot a Grey Seal. Someone is taking a photo. I descend the ramp and find out the seal is quite dead.

Grey Seal.

I have my lunch at the beach, just at bottom of the cliff. There are some surfers in the water. I carry on and come across a couple that I've seen the previous day at Hayburn Wyke, they must have been walking the Cleveland Way.

Painted Lady.

Scarborough is in the horizon, now within reach. I check the time and my progress and find that I can make the 3:02 if I walk quickly, and that's what I do. I get to the station in time to get a coffee and board the train. A wonderful walk that I hope to do again.

Train trip: Cloughton Wyke to Hayburn Wyke

 

I take the train to Scarborough and then the X93 bus to Cloughton. I walk along the curiously called Salt Pans Road towards the coast. In the OS maps there are some 'salt pans' labelled on Cloughton Wyke by the beach, but the tide is too high to see them. Along the way, House Martins, Swallows, Meadow Pipits and Yellowhammers. Two Roe Deer run away, then settle at the end of a field.

A Rook carries an acorn to cache it.

Meadow Pipits.

Yellowhammer.

Roe Deer doe.

The bay is stunning, with large blocks of Jurassic sandstone rock at the base of the cliffs, the clifftops clothed on bracken. A Fulmar circles over the cliff.

Cloughton Wyke.

The wooded slopes looking north towards Hayburn Wyke.

Flowering Wood Sage.

European Goldenrod, a new plant for me.

The steep path down to Hayburn Wyke.

Trees are clothed on mosses and liverworts.

I have my pack lunch by the stream, looking at the bay. The stream is in spate, the waterfall magnificent, but this means the stream is hard to cross at the beach, so I can't access the Dark Bush-cricket spot. Not that it matters, it is a cloudy, cool day, so they are unlikely to be active.

Little Egret.

Hayburn Wyke.

The waterfall.

There seems to have been landslides on the right hand side of the cliffs.

The beck from the path.

Jay.

Tiny toad crossing the path.

I walk up the path to the Inn and have a hot drink before taking the Cinder Track towards Cloughton, and get my bush back.

Joining the cinder track back to Cloughton.

The wetland on the way, two Wigeon flew up and a Water rail called from the rushes.

Broad-leaved Helleborine.

Train trip: Around Robin Hood's Bay

A long trip including a train ride to Scarborough and a bus drive to Brow Top to walk from there to Robin Hood's Bay. Brow top is in moorland, which appears to be managed for grouse as there are very obviously burnt patches. I fail to find Mossy Mere, a name that suggests a boggy area, but there are no paths and the heather is woody in many places. A Stonechat sits on a gorse bush and meadow pipit flocks fly off. I reach the trig point marking 220 m, and then it's mostly downhill, meandering alongside country lanes and minor roads. I have taken my Echo meter detector to check for bush crickets. The views are wonderful, the day mild, with no wind.

The trig point and the sea in the distance, looking north.

Robin Hood's Bay.

A cottage outside wall has many Wall Pennywort dry seed heads. No leaves to be seen. This is a plant of humid walls and cliffs, more at home on the west coast.

Badger latrine.

The most common orthopteran of the day, Field Grasshopper.

The view from Robin Hood's bay, looking north. I have a picnic on a bench and it is balmy, i have to take my fleece off.

Small Tortoiseshell.

After my lunch, it's time to search for Dark Bush-crickets. I leave the village and take the steps for the Cleveland way. Atop the steps, on the sunny side of the hedge, my ultrasound device picks the scratchy calls of dark bush-crickets, unfortunately, a barbed wire fence prevents me from seeing where they are so I have to content myself with the recording. A Lizard scuttles behind a clump of grass further on the coastal path and as a consolation prize I spot a singing Roesel's, the Northernmost I've seen.

Looking back to Robin Hood's Bay and the hedge.

Roesel's male calling.

Whilst trying to spot the calling Dark Bush-crickets, I see these bugs. Later, I find out they are Boat Bugs, Enoplops scapha, a local species in the UK, which is found in dunes and coastal cliffs.

Basking Peacock.

I quickly walk up the steep street to catch the bus and have to sprint for it.