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.

The Outstrays with Hull Nats

An irregular drizzle followed us most of the day in our visit to the Outstrays, a managed realigment site on the easternmost field of Sunk Island (read about the reclamation of Sunk Island in a previous post). We have parked on the Outstrays farm, then make our way to the pumping station. We can see some scrapes developed on the other side of the drain, which are busy with waders and gulls. A Wheatear is seen atop a mound of soil.

Saltmarsh has developed on much of the surface  of the realigned land (top shot), and we spend some time identifying the saltmarsh plants. A strange, harsh call, almost like a water rail rose from the edge of the marsh. Two Whimbrels then called their wonderful ringing call, rising. Shelduck, Ringed Plover, Dunlin and Redshank fed on the ebbing tide. Cormorants dried their wings from driftwood. I flush a Short-eared Owl, and it flies away, then drops on the marsh.

Mute Swans.

Avocet on the new scrape.

Whimbrel.

Redshank, Dunlin and Ringed Plover.

Sea Lavender.

A view of the saltmarsh.

After a while, we notice that the odd lump in the middle of the saltmarsh is actually a beached whale (see top shot). We try to make sense of the carcass, we discuss if it could be a baleen whale given the shape of the mouth, but we don't make much progress on this. The only recent stranding we've heard of is up to 5 male Sperm Whales near Spurn, Skeffling and Cleethorpes.

My best shot of the stranded whale. We can't get any closer as there is a deep gully on the way. I think the mouth is on the right, and a fin can be seen in the middle.

The Devil's Coachman, Ocypus olens.

Roe Deer.

We walk to the meridian monument and then take a path to the edge of the marsh, looking for the shelly beach. Although we don't find it, we have the chance of comparing the flora of both sites and spot some excavated nests that could be those of the Sea Aster bee on the side of a short muddy ledge. And just before leaving the site, probably the same Short-eared Owl flies over, giving me a chance for a few photos.

Short-eared Owl.