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. It is sunny, but the remnants of storm Boelo means there is a strong westerly wind. I walk along the only street in Scorborough towards St Leonard Church and a bit beyond. The road follows Scorborough Beck. A group of 15 Little Egrets sits 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 is more recent, but the area is lush with mature trees, pastures and small copses, and there are numerous springs in the area too.

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.

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.

The route follows the Minster Way across fields 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 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.

A 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 young female, a bird of the year, which was caught alive, presumably on 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 include 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.Grey Herons had long been associated to Scorborough. The mature trees, several moats and nearby river made it an ideal spot for a heronry. “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."

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, 1923
Nelson, 1907
Browne, H.B. 1912. The Story of the East Riding of Yorkshire.