Holderness: Skirlaugh to Hornsea

A mild day with light cloud and sunny spells, I take the but 24 to Skirlaugh. My route today takes me from Skirlaugh to Hornsea via the Hornsea Railway Trail, on the former railway line from Hull to Hornsea that now also serves as the last stage of the Trans-Pennine Trail. Unfortunately the bus stops are quite away from where the A165 crosses the trail, and this road is too busy and lacking a footpath, so I opt for taking Mulberry Road and Ellerby Road to join the trail. The route today takes me through farmland, mostly arable, except for the Lambwath valley SSSI, where hay is grown in traditional meadows. This section of the Lambwath is quite innaccessible, with few public rights of way, but I will devote more space to the Lambwath in another walk.

The trail is sound and even underfoot, some small sections tarmacked, and only a few muddy stretches. The banks have been mowed so it's wide enough. I meet some dog walkers, walkers and cyclists along the way, a loud group in the finishing stretch of the Transpennine Trail. The trail doesn't always run on the railway track, weaving sideways in sections, leaving the embankment on one side. Small copses and old hedgerows, today adorned with flowering dog roses, elder and honeysuckle, all adding to a wonderful fragance, line the way.

A Pied Wagtail collects insects on Silverhall Farm, near Skirlaugh.

I'm pleased to see good numbers of Small Tortoiseshells along the way.

Ellerby Road, between barley and rapeseed fields.

A Reed Bunting singing from the ripening rapeseed.

Skylark calling from a bare patch in the field.

I take a short detour to look for Twayblades and after some searching I'm rewarded with a single spike.

Whitethroat.

Linnet.

I cross the road at New Ellerby, a hamlet that was serviced by a station on market days. The platform and station remain, the latter now a private residence. In the wooded, more sheltered areas, Yellow-barred Longhorn moths gather and males dance flying up and down, occasionally resting on nearby leaves.

Large Skipper.

A good day for insects, a patch of Hedge Woundwort yields a Rhingia campestris, a hoverfly that likes tubular flowers.

I'm now descending the Lambwath valley. I climb the bank on the side of the trail and look across the bare field looking for hares. No hares, but I find a Buzzard gliding over the valley. I stop at the sound bridge over the Lamwath Stream. The water is clear, a couple of Azure Damselflies mate on the Reed Sweet-grass.

Buzzard.

Bridge over the Lambwath stream.

Lambwath stream, looking West.

Azure Damselflies.

Lamwath Meadows SSSI.

I climb the valley towards Whitedale, a hamlet that was also served with a station (top shot), now a private residence. A Swallow sings from the wires and House Sparrows are busy on its roof. After a little while, I find a spot with a nice view and I sit on the verge for lunch, a Yellowhammer and a Brown Hare for company.

Swallow at Whitedale.

Orange Tip, the only male I saw today.

Yellowhammer.

Reed Bunting.

Brown Hare.

It's time to carry on. A Marsh Harrier is quartering the fields in the distance, the Withernwick wind turbines as a backdrop. Another road crossing, this one between Little Hatfield and Great Hatfield, although the station itself is called Sigglesthorne. A small Local Nature Reserve has been designated along the trail, just north of the station. It has a wetland character, with reeds, willows, aspen and bracken. Soon I'm near Hull Bridge, a brick bridge where the Hull Road crosses the trail. The area is waterlogged and there are sedges, brooklime and ferns. There are records of Twayblade here, but I find none. 

Marsh Harrier.

Dog Rose.

Hull Bridge near Hornsea.

I'm now in Hornsea. Some Swifts fly over. On a field after crossing Stream Dyke, two crow Fledglings beg to one of their parents. I reach the final station of the trail and the promenade. The grassy area nearby is busy with a large flock of Starlings, with many young, and a pair of Linnets. A group of high school students are led along the promenade. This is a typical geography day trip spot to highlight coastal erosion and defences, so it's rare to miss a school trip on a visit to Hornsea. The tide is rising fast. On one of the end groynes, a pair of Sandwich Terns preen. Small parties fly past chirruping. Sand Martins pass over I'm ready for a rest, so I get an ice-cream and a coffee and sit on a picnic table by the new landscaped promenade gardens and fountain. My rest doesn't last long, as a feeding frenzy starts offshore. This is a high point in the promenade, offering a great view. A cloud of Herring Gulls surrounds small parties of Razorbills and Guillemots, which are very successful taking small fish. Two Gannets appear out of nowhere and dive bomb. As fast as it formed, the birds disperse and I'm glad to have watched this unexpected spectacle just before my bus back home is due. 

Swift.

Feeding frenzy with Herring Gulls.

Guillemot.

Razorbills.

Gannet.

Urban birds at Hull. 50. Reed Warbler

 

The Reed Warbler deserves inclusion in the urban birds series, despite its retiring habits, always in the midst of reeds, rarely exposed: a bird that is hard to see. However, once you are familiar with the, rhythmic cadence of scratchy notes, each repeated several times and including occasional mimicry, a walk by any patch of reeds at the right time of the year is likely to reveal its presence, and if you are lucky, a sighting, as it sings from a perch in the middle of a reed stem. Reed Warblers are warm brown birds, with creamy underside and a light eye stripe and bright white throat that gleams when it sings. Both sexes look alike. It has a pointy bill and rounded tail. It is amusing to watch how deftly it moves in its element of vertical, tightly packed reed stems, siddling up and down like they are moon-walking.

7/05/2022. Beverley and Barmston Drain.

Status and Distribution in Hull

Reed Warblers are summer migrants, that usually arrive in the last week of April or first week of May and settle in their territories and sing right away. It is in these first days that they are easiest to spot, the new reeds still short and the old stems thinned by the winter. They are locally distributed, due to their restricted habitat requirements and breed on the fringing reedbeds along the river Hull north of Stoneferry, the Beverley and Barmston Drain and at Noddle Hill, and in the Humber reedbeds east of Hessle and by St Andrews Quay. Other small patches of reeds by ditches in the outskirts of the city are also likely to hold a pair. They usually produce two broods and most birds leave during September. During migration, they can turn up anywhere.

Beverley and Barmston Drain by Bridlington Avenue, 21/05/2023.

Beverley and Barmston Drain by Sculcoates, 21/04/2025.

Recently fledged Reed Warblers, still attended by parents, Beverley and Barmston Drain, 8/08/2022.

Conservation and management

Reed Warbler are Green Listed, as populations have increased over 40% in the last three decades. Their distribution range is also expanding north, having recently colonised southern Scotland, most likely benefiting from the warming climate. Increases appear to be due to more productivity, due to earlier egg laying, rather than better adult survival. Improved reedbed management may have also helped the species. An appreciation of the conservation value of urban reedbeds, which offers resources for a range of birds that feed chicks with insects, is likely to benefit this and other urban species.

More information

Broughton, R.K. 2002 Birds of the Hull area.

BTO Birdfacts. Reed Warbler.

Holderness: Winestead, Halsham and Ottringham

I take the X7 bus to Winestead from the station. There are sunny spells and no rain forecast, but on a whim I take my coat. As I alight, a Swallow lands on a wire holding some nesting material. The theme of today's birds is breeding, there are nervous birds alarming near their nest, birds carrying food to chicks and nest building birds, birds mobbing nest predators, and also many birds singing. I explore Winestead's St Germain's Church grounds, which stands away from the village in the middle of a field, surrounded by mature trees. On my way out, in a corner with longer grass, I find some Lesser Marsh Grasshoppers. A Hare runs across a grassy field in the distance.

Swallow with nesting material.

St Germain's church and grounds.

As I walk north by Winestead Lane, it starts spotting and then a drizzle settles in. I'm so glad I took my raincoat. Fortunately, it doesn't last long. The landscape is slightly undulating, with the higher ground often holding copses and plantations. Winestead also had several Halls: White Hall, Red Hall (not demolished) and Winestead Hall, meaning that these halls grounds and woods increas the area's tree cover. Arable and plenty of hedges make the rest, with some paddocks near the villages. The villages today are made of scattered houses, often clumped around one of the halls and extending over a large area.  The lane is busy, with tractors, lorries carrying pigs and carrs back and forth.

Linnet near Winestead Hall.

Whitethroat singing.

Red-legged Partridges. I am still to take a photo of Grey Partridges, I flushed two today not long after this.

Lesser Marsh Grasshopper.

Linnets.

A passing Sparrowhawk.

In a strip of fallow land by a cornfield, a Skylark sung high up, while another on the ground, with a beak full of food, looked nervously around.

Not far off there were two Hares.

I get to the east end of Halsham. It is another disperse, and elongated village, with a west and an east side connected by North Road and Southside Road and a network of footpaths. The church is in the Northwestern corner, near Halsham Grange and the Constable Mausoleum. A man is mowing the verges on a large mower at Southside Lane. On a paddock, a Pied Wagtail and a Blackbird find food, whilst a Greenfinch sings from the trees and two Swallows fly overhead.

Female Blackbird enjoying the worm glut after the rain.

Swallow.

A tiny Rabbit shakes the water from its paws.

A distant shot of a female Yellowhammer with a beak full of food.

The hedges look lush after the last rains after a dry spring. I spend some time paying attention to the bushes making the hedge: hawthorn, dogwood, ash, elder, elm, field maple and the occasional alder.

I'm pleased to find the shiny, heart-shaped leaves of a Black Bryony on a hedge. This is a twining perennial climber found on woodland edges and hedgerows, which produces bright red berries in October. It is not a common species in East Yorkshire.

Robin with food.

I make a lunch stop by the road. There are a couple of benches and a good view of the fields. Rooks caw and move between the fields and a paddock with ponies. A Kestrel flies over. Young Goldfinches hassle their parents for food. I take a right at the end of Southside Lane. There are some fishing lakes, where I spot a Blue-tailed Damselfly. 

Rook.

Goldfinch fledgling.

Blue-tailed Damselfly.

As the sun shines, there are quite a lot of Small Tortoisehells about.

As to mark 'visited a village' I have decided I have to visit the church, I make my way to all Saint's Church in Halsham. It requires some verge walking on the very busy North Road connecting Hedon and Withernsea. I doubt anyone walks there. A Buzzard is mobbed by crows, a herring gull and rooks.

The Constable family Mausoleum. It was built on a small rise, which turned out to be a tumulus containing skeletons and urns with copper coins. Some contents of the tumulus are now in Burton Constable.

Buzzard.

Buzzard mobbed by a yelling Rook.

Singing Robin.

A crop footpath leading to Ottringham north end.

Pied Wagtail.

House Martin.

As I get to Ottringham, House Martins chirrup above. Then a group of around 8 land and start collecting mud from a roadside muddy rut. I take some photos against the sun, and I move on to get a better angle. Unfortunately, a van parks in that very spot, depriving me of photos and of mud to the House Martins.

House Martins collecting mud.

I'm lucky that the bus is due soon, so I can take the X7 again, which has a more direct route back to Hull.