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.