Great Bustard Old Country. Walk 5: between Reighton and Bridlington

A sunny, mild day with barely a breeze, I take a walk is on the high Wolds, between Reighton and Bridlington, passing through the little village of Grindale. I make the start on the bus stop at Reighton by the old pub, The Dotterel, which, after being closed for a long time is now converted into a private house. At least the caravan site has kept the name.

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Dotterel © Nik Borrow, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC) via iNaturalist.

Dotterels

The Dotterel is a beautiful, small plover with subdued colours - white, russet and grey. It shares with the Great Bustard an association with flat, open land. In Yorkshire, it is a scarce passage summer migrant, most likely to be seen by the coast during the spring passage, in late April or early May on route to their upland Scottish or Scandinavian breeding grounds. Before the 20th century, the Dotterel abundance was legendary during spring passage across the high Wolds. Around Buckton, Hunmanby, Speeton and Bempton large, 100 strong ‘trips’ - the evocative name for flocks of the species - used the area as a traditional spring migration stopping ground for two or three weeks each year, often feeding on fallow land or pea crops. These spring arrivals attracted gunners and collectors, and big numbers were shot. The Dotterel Inn was purposefully built by the Strickland family to accommodate the shooters. There is also a Dotterel Cottage at Weaverthorpe, near Foxholes, dating from before 1828. Unfortunately, large Dotterel spring gatherings and the pub are now gone, the species now severely declined, partly due to climate change, and it is now just an occasional scarce passage migrant to the area.

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I carefully cross the busy, five-ways roundabout, memorable by its sculptures of shepherd, dog and sheep (maybe a celebration of the old sheepwalks?) and take the country lane to Grindale. It is a sunny and very still day, contrasting with the windy and stormy weather we've had lately. I take in the magnificent views to the west over Reighton Field and the Wolds beyond. This highly arable land allows open views across softly undulating large fields with relatively young hawthorn hedgerows as boundaries. The soil is pale, with chalk visible on the surface among the sprouting winter wheat. The views are broken by occasional small copses. I'm struck by the silence, there is no traffic on the lane and I can hear the occasional Skylark, Yellowhammer and a Goldcrest on the hedge by a crossroads. The high Wolds have a very low human population density: villages tend to be lower down, where water is available from springs and becks. Near Grindale, there are two lost villages: Argam and Bartindale. The lane goes on the bridge over the railway track. Several Tree Sparrows and a Yellowhammer fly off from a puddle, still wet and ruffled from bathing. Two hares sit on a field, one crouched behind a molehill, the other behind a couple of chalk stones, making themselves almost invisible.

The building of old The Dotterel Inn.

Expansive views across Reighton Field.

A constant of the verges are the still flowering Red Campions.

View of the single track railway line to Scarborough from the bridge.

Tree Sparrow after bathing.

Hare and molehill.

I grind to a halt when I hear Jays screech from a copse on top of Grindale Field, Wasters Plantation and scan with my binocular trying to spot them. Grindale Field has been one of the aims of this walk, as it is one of the four named fields where bustards lived. It is now a set of large fields on a hill, affording good all round views across the landscape, where bustards felt safe from predators. Something unusual about the Grindale parish is that it was a late enclosure, the act is from 1844, so the traditional way to manage the land, by mixed farming, was still practiced here allowing the Great Bustard a refuge were it could still breed. A hint of the old land management is in the title of this document in the papers of the Lloyd-Greame family of Sewerby: 'Pain forbidding turning cattle onto open fields until corn got in', meaning that cattle (or sheep) would usually be allowed into open fields after harvest, to feed on stubble and weeds, and to fertilise the land with their droppings. My walk skirts two sides of the field along the lane: there are no public rights of way in the area.

Wasters Plantation in the background and Grindale Field on the right. Looking like a David Hockney painting.

Several records support that the area where I walked today had long been a haunt of the Great Bustard. Sir C.W. Strickland wrote that is grandfather, Sir William Strickland (b.1753, d. 1834) talked about Great Bustard droves 25 strong on the Wolds between Reighton and Bridlington. Sir. C.W. Strickland contrasts this with his own experience of a declining species and final demise:

‘About thirty years ago [i.e., 1814] when I first knew this country, the flock frequenting this part of the Wolds was reduced to five or six, and appeared to remain at that standing for some time, and I not infrequently met with it when riding about ; it however soon became reduced, and it is about fifteen years since [i.e., 1829] the last was killed at Reighton, since which [time] none have been seen in this neighbourhood.’ in Nelson, 1907.

In fact, we have a tantalising record of a sighting of a lone Great Bustard in Grindale Field by Mr. John Milner, of Middledale, Kilham, around 1828 while riding with his father, probably one of the last native Great Bustards on this side of the Wolds.

Modern threats

The world has changed a lot in the two centuries since the Great Bustard got extinct. There is a railway line, busy roads, electricity posts and tall wind turbines, all collision risks for a large bird, which is not very agile when flying. Tall pylons are rare in the Wolds, but electricity posts could be an issue. Even hedges, copses and shelter belts are avoided by bustards, as they interrupt their line of view. They do like to have a broad view of their surroundings. As I get to High Easton I see a line of wind turbines in the distance. I also get a timely reminder of a risk that has grown since WWII which is behind the declines of farmland bird species: pesticides. As I approach the crossing to Grindale, a tractor gets in a field, spreads the booms of its sprayer and starts spraying pesticide on the growing crop ahead of me. I can see a cloud of chemical drifting over the lane ahead, and I stay back, waiting for the tractor to disappear over the field, an acrid taste in my mouth. Pesticides don't usually kill the birds, but drastically decrease the number of insects that birds need to feed their chicks, resulting in poor productivity. High intensity farmland could support adult bustards, which are quite omnivorous, but not breeding ones. For this, sensitive land management, with reduced pesticide use and broad field margins to support additional insects and weeds would be needed.

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I soon get to the little village of Grindale (the name from Old English 'Green Dale') it is laid in a shallow dale, the buildings encircling around a pond, Grindale Mere. I walk around the village and I stop at the mere for lunch, on a very well placed bench in the sunshine overlooking the water. I spot a couple of Red Admirals and a Common Darter.

Trees surround a spring near the village.

The Church Room at Mereside, now a private residential property.

Grindale Mere, from Mere Lane.

Mallard.

Sheep.

The only flock of sheep I saw today, by Grindale Church. There are several pasture fields on the west and east side of the village.

Derelict Manor Farm buildings at Grindale.

St Nicholas Church.

A farm building made of blocks of chalk in Grindale, with a post box. The phone box is gone.

Grindale Field. I have to tiptoe by the fence to take the photo and minutes later a farmer asks if I've been by the fence. Apparently I have triggered a motion sensor for intruders!

A Kestrel concentrating very hard on possible prey on a field boundary.

This lone Corn Bunting was my highlight of the day, sitting on an overgrown broad hedge near High Easton.

Wind turbines by the Gypsy Race.

Another Kestrel, this one a male at High Easton.

I leave Grindale and face the busier road to Bridlington. Arriving at High Easton farm, the sea and the outline of Bridlington, with its distinctive priory tower become visible. The route is now downhill. I  manage to make it to the train back home at 14:39.

Travel. Train to Bridlington, East Yorkshire bus 12 to Reighton, the Dotterel stop. Facilities in Bridlington.

Route: Walk from Reighton to Bridlington, 11.5 km. OS Map. The walk is on tarmacked country lanes, with some gentle ups and downs.

More information

Clarke, W. E., & Roebuck, W. D. (1881). A Handbook of the Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshire. Lovell Reeve.

Nelson, T. H., Clarke, W. E., & Boyes, F. (1907). The birds of Yorkshire: being a historical account of the avi-fauna of the County. A. Brown.

Great Bustard Old Country. Walk 4. Around Scorborough

Another walk for the series, this time barely skirting the Yorkshire Wolds. I take the bus to Scorborough, a sunny day. However, the remnants of storm Boelo means that there is a strong westerly wind. Today's is a very flat walk, on arable fields and across the shallow valleys of running becks. I walk along the only street in Scorborough towards St Leonard Church and a bit beyond, the road following the wriggly path of Scorborough Beck. I'm surprised to spot a group of 15 Little Egrets roosting and preening by the winding beck behind a building, well sheltered from the wind. Scorborough was the site of the Hotham family, before they moved to South Dalton Hall after the original moated hall in Scorborough was destroyed in a fire in 1705 or 1706. Today's Scorborough Hall was built afterwards, but the area is lush with mature trees, pastures and small copses, the remains of the original parkland. The area has plenty of water with two becks, lakes and numerous springs and the remains of an old duck decoy by the river Hull.

Some of the Little Egrets. The species has had a dramatic increase in numbers in the last couple of decades.

Kestrel.

A Grey Heron sits by the beck. Grey Herons have long been associated to Scorborough. In the early 19th century Scorborough held a large heronry, which had long been lost by the middle of the century. The mature trees, several moats and nearby river made it an ideal spot. “A small remnant of decayed trees, bald headed with dry antiquity, hard by where the mansion stood, and close to the road, still affords protection to a company of herons; and an extensive castle moat is still preserved." Although there is no heronry at Scorborough today, there are a couple nearby, one of them at Tophill Low.

Scorborough Hall in between the trees, sits near the church.

St Leonard's Church. 

Jackdaws and Rooks play in the updrafts around the spire.

Cattle at Lakes Farm.

Pied Wagtail.

My route initially follows the Minster Way across fields with a touch of greening with sprouting winter wheat (top shot), and then crosses Snowclose Plantation. After that I make my way to Bealey's Lane, a wide bridleway lined by hedges. I stop at the ford at Moor Beck to have some lunch. Bealey's Lane takes me to Leconfield, where I get my bus back.

A mixed flock of gulls on a field.

Mature Oaks like the lane.

The ford by Bealey's Plantation.

The road to Gomary Road Farm.

Leconfield Old School.

Collection frenzy

What brings me here today in relation to the Great Bustard is the topic of personal collections and the role they played in the eventual extinction of the species. Collecting mounted (taxidermy) specimens of birds and their eggs was a fashionable hobby in the 19th century among naturalists and the gentry. The mounts would be presented in bespoke cases and would take pride of place in the house, in a cabinet of curiosities. Many amateur ornithologists were then always armed with a gun, and regularly shooting rare or prized birds, in the absence of photography or binoculars was the way birders birded. Although the rapid change of land use spearheaded by the enclosures had been a ‘notice to quit’ for the Bustard in the words of Nelson, the ‘coup the grace’ for the species was the frenzy for shooting and collecting, the rarer the bird, the higher the prizes it would attain. Specimens would change hands in auctions and collectors would seek to ‘complete’ their collections with particular missing species, or make some money selling rare ones. James Middleton Hall, Esq., who was born at Scorborough in 1801 and lived at Scorborough Hall, was one such collectors. He was regarded as a ‘model country esquire', owning a stud and holding the Mastership of the Holderness Hunt for 30 years. He must have assembled a sizeable bird collection. He owned two mounted Great Bustards of Yorkshire origin. One, an adult male, was shot at North Dalton, the other was a juvenile female that had been caught alive in the neighbourhood around 1825, and tethered on the lawn on the grounds of the Hall. When the female died, it was mounted and added to the collection. Mr Hall's collection also included several rarities, like a Little Bustard, that had been shot near Beverley, and a Great White Egret, only the 3rd Yorkshire record, which was killed in 1843 in Aike, by the river Hull, by a John Norris, and sold to Mr. Hall. He also had one of the two earliest Little Egrets seen in East Yorkshire. He recounted how it came to be in his possession: "The Little Egret in my possession was killed by a labourer with a stick in Ake [Aike] Carr, near Beverley, about 1840, and was brought to me tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, covered with black wet mud and blood, in which state it was sent to Mr. Reed [Hugh Reid, the reputed taxidermist] of Doncaster, who restored it in a marvellous manner." Other of James Hall’s rarities were an adult and immature Black-winged Stilts obtained at Aike Carr about 1850. 

Mr. James Hall died in 1877 and when his collection was sold in 1878 it was split. The male bustard passed to the collections of Thomas Boynton of Bridlington, and the female, and the black-winged stilts to Mr. John Stephenson of Beverley, the latter eventually ending in the Beverley Museum, where it was in 1923, when Thomas Sheppard wrote about it. Unfortunately it appears to be lost. It appears that Thomas Boynton bequeathed his collections to the Yorkshire Museum, but I don’t have information about where the male bustard ended. The Great White Egret was obtained for the Yorkshire Museum in York.

Travel. East Yorkshire bus 41 between Hull and Bridlington stops at Scorborough. No facilities at Scorborough or Leconfield.

Route. Circular around Scorborough, ending at Leconfield. 8.3 km. OS Map.

More information
Sheppard, T. (1923). Yorkshire Great Bustards. The Naturalist, 48, 87–89.
Nelson, T. H., Clarke, W. E., & Boyes, F. (1907). The birds of Yorkshire: being a historical account of the avi-fauna of the County. A. Brown.
Browne, H.B. 1912. The Story of the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Great Bustard Old Country. Walk 3: Cranswick and Bustard Nest Farm

A pleasant morning with blue skies and a light northerly wind, I take the train to Hutton Cranswick for a circular walk around Bustard Nest Farm. I walk through the village, stopping in the lovely village pond, and after crossing Beverley Road, I take Burnbutts Lane, a single track road across arable land. It is a very gentle uphill to the Wolds, from the 10 m of the railway station to 44 m at Old Field. At first, thick, tall hedges block the views, but soon these become broad flat verges with no ditches and there are expansive vistas across large fields towards the upper reaches of the Hull river valley. These uninterrupted views, allowing a look out, is the ideal Great Bustard landscape. A large Common Gull flock loaf in the middle of one of the fields. Rooks and Jackdaws feed and wheel noisily, and Skylarks chase, one bursting into a short spell of song. I see the occasional Yellowhammer, on hedges and trees.

Rook.

The pond on Cranswick village green.

Mallard.

A large patch of Bogbean.

Starling singing.

Rook calling.

Pied Wagtail.

I get to the pretty Little Bustard farm. Its name alludes not to the Little Bustard species, but to the fact that it is a smaller farm than Bustard Nest farm. A Kestrel hunts from the trees at the bottom of the garden and sparrows, both House and Tree sparrows, call from the hedges. The fields between both farms have a good diversity of farmland birds, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Yellowhammers, a Reed Bunting and I'm delighted to spot a small flock of Corn Buntings on the wires.

Little Bustard Farm.

The sign at Little Bustard farm.

Kestrel.

Common Gulls loafing.

Corn Buntings.

Corn Buntings.

Yellowhammer.

The broad verges and lack of ditches of the Wolds fields.

Bustard Nest farm in the distance.

A 1831 map showing Bustard Nest farm. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.

What’s in a name?

Toponyms (place names), can give an indication of the lost animals in an area. I have spoken on this blog about the link between the name of Beverley and Beavers, and we have sub-fossil evidence of beavers near the town. The name Cranswick has a link to Cranes, which likely abounded on the river Hull Valley long ago. The name Bustard Nest farm has long intrigued me. The mixed farm is less than 1.5 miles west of Cranswick, in the gentle eastern foothills of the Wolds. I haven't found any documents related to when and why the farm got its name. It appears with that name in a historical map published in 1828 (see image above), but not in Jeffrey's 1771 (which includes the nearby Burn Butts, after which the lane I'm walking is named). Perhaps the farm was established just after the enclosure of the land, possibly when the Great Bustard was already extinct, but close to that time to be in the memory of those involved. I'd like to think that a Bustard nest was found locally before the farm was built and the farmer honoured the presence of the species. The name bustard also appears in Little Bustard Farm nearby, and Bustard nest Fox Covert, the only bustard toponyms in East Yorkshire. In a future walk we'll visit North Dalton, in which parish the only existing Great Bustard egg was found. It's highly likely that the Great Bustard also roamed the parish of Hutton Cranswick. Great to think that the area has place names for both of these locally lost names. The Cranes are slowly making inroads into the Hull Valley. Is there a future for the Great Bustard here too?

Red Kite by Burnsbutt Farm.

Buzzard soaring above.

Common and Black-headed Hulls follow a tractor.

The photo above is from a short stretch of the Minster Way. I get here at midday and stop for a quick lunch. I've planned all the walks of the series on the OS map app. I initially was going to carry on to Bainton, but I have a change of heart and decide to turn back via another right of way that passes by Bustard Nest Fox Covert. The appeal of the Bustard toponyms is too much to resist.

The area is crossed by now dismantled Driffield to Selby railway line. The section between Driffield and Market Weigthon opened in 1890, closed in 1954. Unlike the Hudson Way, there is no public right of way on the line. Some embankments and cuttings remain, but the level areas are now completely erased and now are continuous fields. The bridge above takes the road over the railway near Neswick Farm, and reminds us of the lost railway line.

Bustard Nest Fox Covert in the background.

Some apples on the hedges.

The footpath skirts Bustard Nest Fox Covert, after a footbridge.

A field by Bustard Nest Farm has been planted with chicory as cover crop, and there is a large covey of partridges near it.

A highland cow at Bustard Nest Farm.

Pond at Bustard Nest Farm.

This Brown Hare let me approach quite close, and then sprinted through the field.

Travel. Train to Hutton-Cranswick. East Yorkshire bus 41 between Hull and Bridlington stops at Hutton Cranswick.

Route. Circular route from Cranswick, Bustard Nest Farm. 12 km. OS Map. Farm Shop and Cafe at Cranswick.