Wild at Hull: Walking the Humber. Stage 5. River Hull to Alexandra Dock

Wednesday, 14 February 2018

Walking the Humber. Stage 5. River Hull to Alexandra Dock

A cold day with a strong and steady southerly wind, the kids and I start the walk at Princes Quay and head towards The Deep by the Marina. This short stage is on paved footpaths just by the estuary. It is almost low tide. A Curlew and a Redshank feed on the exposed mud by the bank of the river Hull.
After passing by the long half-term queue by The Deep we walk by Victoria Dock Village. This relatively new residential area sits on the location of the old Victoria Dock. On the side of the path there is a large patch of See Mallow, which I had never seen in East Yorkshire. Its seeds float and are resistant to sea water, so it could be self-seeded.
We walk pass Half Tide dock and its outer basin. Some Sea Aster grows here by the tide line.
There is a section with a few rocky break waters, with a gentle incline of pebbles and rubble and a little saltmarsh at the top. The remains of three barges sit half sunken in the mud (top shot). The new Siemens Green port has meant that the old Public Right of Way by the Humber has now been rerouted along Alexandra dock, so we finish the stage at this point and return by an inlard route avoiding the wind chill through Victoria Dock Village.

Featured species: Curlew
The Humber is a nationally important wintering ground for this elegant, large wader. Its mournful call alert the walker to its presence in mudflats, probing the mud with its wonderfully long bill, in search of ragworms and other invertebrates. However, the Curlew has experience serious population declines in the last couple of decades, which affect both the the breeding and the wintering population, which is supplemented by Scandinavian birds. This species is now Red Listed in the UK and near threatened worldwide.