Migrants Way. Stage 4. Holmpton to Withernsea

 
After wondering if it was worth carrying on with the Migrants Way given that, due to the lockdown, I had missed almost two months of spring migration, I decided to continue. It is not a long drive to the Holderness coast and social isolation is not a problem. I had counted on no walks during the Easter break anyway so it should be relatively easy to catch up.
There were showers as I left home, but once at Homlpton, it had stopped raining. It was a warm, calm morning, with brief sunny spells. I parked on Seaside Road at Holmpton and took in the bird song, and the lushness of the vegetation in the village, before taking the coastal path north.

Fishermen and a fisherwoman at work.

Although some fields are tilled and sown to the edge of the cliff, there are long stretches with a wide fringe of rough, uncultivated land by the coastal path from Holmpton to Withernsea. This is a haven for a range of farmland birds. Flocks of Linnets twitted by, Skylarks rose and sung, Meadow Pipits did their parachute flights, one with insects in its bill, feeding young. Hirundines were also a plenty, especially Sand Martins, and there are occasional pairs or quartets of Swifts flying north.
 I cross the Runnel, a small drain with a collapsed pillbox. I pass a few farms.

A Swallow singing at Holmpton.

Reed Bunting

Linnet singing.

A well marked male Linnet.

Meadow Pipit.

Horses at Nevilles Farm.

Camouflaged skylark.

At Intack farm, I have to move to the road as the clifftop path south of Withernsea, by the caravan parks, is not accessible due to coastal erosion and coastal defence works. As I get to the road, I hear a familiar jingle of keys, a Corn Bunting, singing from a wire.  

 Other than the stretch beyond the promenade, there are a few ways down the cliff to the beach which frequented by fishermen, but only the one by The Runnel is easily accessible. The others are steep steps made on the clay, some supported with slabs of concrete.

 As I reach the edge of Withernsea, I hear House Sparrow's sparrowhawk call, when I look up, there is a Sparrowhawk indeed, but mobbing a Red Kite, which is something I wasn't expecting!

Red Kite.

Fishing for bait?

Looking back: a view of Dimlington Cliffs and Out Newton farm.

Herring Hulls on nests at Withernsea.

Pied Wagtail on sea wall.

This male House Sparrow flew to the sea defences and collected a bill full of insects in no time at all.

I walk by the south promenade until the end of the stage at the Withernsea Pier towers (also called Withernsea Castle or Sandcastle) and after a walk on the beach I decided to walk back by the road and clifftop path. I see a Wheatear at Intack, but only get poor shots. 

A male Orange Tip settled on a flower head when it became cloudy.

Featured bird: Sand Martin
Sand Martins are our smalles hirundines. They are a cosmopolitan species, and the European population winters in sub-Saharan Africa. They start arriving in our shores in mid March, so the breeding season must be on its way. On my way back, I stopped by the sewage works, where the nest holes in a small patch of sandy clay were being visited by a dozen Sand Martins. Sand Martins are very adaptable, and quickly take advantage of exposed sandy cliffs as they appear, including piles of sand or sand faces in quarries, or natural cliff falls. They are very common in the Holderness cliffs. Given the speed of coastal erosion, this small colony is probably not very old. The birds enjoyed the bonanza of small beetles, St Marks flies and other insects that were plentiful today in the warm weather. They behaved very socially, like daring each other to stop to check the nest holes, not wanting to land on their own. They have a typical hirundine agile and playful looking flight and their calls are reminiscent of bats'. After some poor attempts to photograph them in flight, a group of them settled on the cliff, where I took these photos.

Doggerland
As sea level dropped due to the build-up of the ice sheets of the last Ice Age, a previously submarine landscape emerged under the shallow North Sea. This now long-drowned world was called Doggerland by Exeter University archaeologist Prof. Bryony Coles, inspired by the Dogger Banks, which was one of the last land areas to disappear. Evidence for the existence of this land appeared in various forms. First, thousands of bones and ancient artefacts have been dredged or trawled from the sea floor by fishermen: bone or antler fish hooks, worked flints, human and animal bones, and mammoth tusks. An artificial beach formed in Holland as part of a land reclamation program, using offshore sand, became a magnet for beachcombers as it was plentiful in remains. Then, the evidence of past existence of submerged forests and peaty deposits on the coast, with roots and stumps of birch, pine and hazel, uncovered during spring tides. Also, the study of the effects of glaciations and seismic surveys of the North Sea floor and evidence of huge changes in sea level, which was more than 100 under the current one during the last glacial maximum (22,000 years ago). At times, this expansive landscape, from Scotland to southern Norway in the north to Denmark, Germany and Belgium in the south, was covered on permafrost, but as the climate warmed in the Holocene, it also had forests, large valleys with rivers, lakes and hills (the Dogger Banks). A huge valley, the ‘Greater Ouse’ as termed by Bryony Coles, flowed north draining the rivers and estuaries from the Wash, the Humber to the Tweed and the Moray Firth, forming a huge alluvial plain on the east side of Doggerland. Around 15,000 years ago, this became a living landscape rich in wildlife and megafauna, eventually connecting the faunas and human cultures of northern Europe and the British Isles. Before the last Ice Age, Doggerland was sparsely populated by Neandertals in search of big game, and later my modern humans. Doggerland’s coastline was very dynamic, but the sea level remained about -100 m until the beginning of the Holocene, when the melt of the American ice sheets resulted in rapid sea level rising and the land was finally drowned. Most of Doggerland was lost by 8000 years ago. The role of the the Storegga landslide on the continental shelf off Norway in the final stages of Doggerland is unclear. This landslide caused a tsunami which flooded coastal areas around the North Sea ca. 8200 years ago. I like to think that, in a way, like the last turret of a sandcastle washed up by a wave, Holderness is one of the last remnants of Doggerland.

Walk information

11 km, circular. Start: Holmton Seaside Rd TA372240, finish: Withernsea Pier entrance gate. Parking, streetside Holmton. Toilets: Withernsea Central Promenade and Piggy Lane.

More information
A Walk from Hornsea to Withernsea: https://scottishvagabond.weebly.com/walking-journal/hornsea-to-withernsea-18-miles

Blackburn, Julia. 2019. Time Song: Searching for Doggerland. Jonathan Cape, 304 pp.

Coles, Bryony J. Doggerland: a Speculative Survey. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 64, 45–81 (1998).

Lost world revealed by human, Neanderthal relics washed up on North Sea beaches: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/relics-washed-beaches-reveal-lost-world-beneath-north-sea

Migrants Way. Stage 3. Easington to Holmpton

A beautiful sunny day with a light, cool SE wind. After arriving at Easington, I explore the grounds of the church and visit Tithe barn, a building with a thatched roof which is a scheduled ancient monument. A fox trots ahead of me at Vicar's Lane. I walk on the grassy path by the rock revetment protecting the Easington gas terminal and then move down to the beach. Heavy machinery is being used to pile large metal planks into the beach, presumably protection for the gas pipeline.

The tide is ebbing, with the low tide at 10:35, so I have plenty of time to walk on the beach, as I'm not sure if I'll be able to climb to the top of the cliff later. Checking the tides is crucial in the Holderness coast, as the high tide comes right up to the cliffs and climbing is not always possible. The beach is wide and walking is easy going as the sand is firm. Several pairs of Oystercatchers roost by the tideline. A small flock of Twite fly south just over the sand, calling along.

Oystercatcher.

The beach is mostly sand and shingle, with towering, crumbling clay cliffs. There is nobody there, no dog walkers, no fishermen, no runners. The cliffs are at their highest at Dimlington High Land, but here they appear particularly prone to erosion, they are not vertical, but the clay is slumped in irregular patterns, forming a slope: at the base of the cliffs, flows of liquefying clay have recently poured onto the sand. It is an otherworldly landscape, like I have escaped to Mars. Only the patches of bright yellow Coltsfoot bring me back to Earth

The area where two different colour glacial tills meet. 

The mud flowed over a section of the beach left high.

Another mud flow.

The mud left after glaciers melted

Holderness was born during the last ice age, as the sheets of ice coming from the north across what now is the north sea dragged a lot of sediments, at the base and front of the ice, to an area that previously had been a shallow sea. As the ice melted and the face of the ice sheet retreated, gravel, sand and clay transported by the ice were left behind, this is known as glacial till (another name is boulder clay) and it forms the cliffs of Holderness. These soft glacial sediments form three distinct layers known as Basement, Skipsea and Withernsea tills. The oldest, and deepest is the Basement till, which formed after the previous glacial cycle, (the Wolstonian ca. 300,000-130,000 BP) is only exposed around Dimlington, at the base of the cliff or on low tides, and at Bridlington. The Skipsea (in the middle) and Withernsea (at the top) tills formed as the last glacial ice retreated, each of these coming from different areas. Each was left behind as moraines after successive surges and retreats of the glacial ice lobe. Moraines were deposited during the melt of the ice sheets that covered Holderness. Read this article on glacial till in Holderness.

A patch with sand and gravel, deposited horizontally between the clay.

Looking north towards Dimlington High Land.

The thickest deposits of glacial till are found at the Dimlington high land, where the highest clay cliffs of Holderness are found, reaching over 30.5 m OSL. This is a site of geological importance, Dimlington Cliff SSSI, as it is a key stratigraphic site, that gives name to the Dimlington stadial period in the UK, from 26,000 to 13,000 years ago. There is no trigg point marking the highest point in the cliff as it is at the edge of the cliff, the slope moving landwards. The sea deepens also deepens fast at this point, with the 10 m mark at only 600 m offshore.

 Two villages were lost to rapid coastal erosion: Out Newton, of which only a farm is left, and Dimlington, of which a road name and a hill are all that is left.

Games that gulls play
There is a large mixed party of gulls loafing on the tideline. So much seems to be going on that I make a stop to watch them. The Common Gulls are chasing in the wind, going to and fro, one of them is playing drop-catch with a small object, letting it fall only a short while before catching again, other starts chasing it. Watching without binoculars it would be hard to see what's happening. It is fascinating to watch their agility on the wing and their playfulness in the wind.

Suddenly, I can see Withernsea, with its gleaming white lighthouse jutting out of the coast on the distant horizon.

Old Hive
As I reach Old Hive, a cut made by a dike outfall, the cliff is not as high, and I see dog and human footprints on the beach, so I decide to climb to the cliff top, making sure to step on previous footprints, as the clay is soft in places. I'm not sure this would have been doable on wet clay, but it is mostly dry and firm, so I first scramble up the cliff, then the dike and make it to the top. A pair of Stonechats, a Meadow Pipit and a pair of Linnets are on the rough ground by the dike. Old Hive marks the boundary mark between Easington and Holmpton, just a very long field to go. Huge chunks of this field, clearly planted this winter, have fallen onto the beach (the erosion post at Holmpton registers one of the fastest speeds of erosion at Holderness, 4.3 m per year).

A large chunk of field disappeared since the crop was planted this winter. Looking north towards Holmpton.

Rook on nest.

Holmpton

The trees of the village appear on the distance, a Buzzard calls, with rooks and gulls lazily chasing it. I get to the village and have a walk around. There are plenty of birds, a huge contrast with the deserted field. Tree Sparrows chirp from the hedges, Rooks busy on their nests.
I turn round and come down to the beach again at Old Hive, finding my footsteps on the beach. I find a lump of jurassic clay with an ammonite and bivalves, and a very nice example of armoured mud ball. Armoured mud balls result from eroded pieces of mud becoming covered with pebbles and small rocks, and then being rolled around in the sea. They tend to have elongated shapes and are very common under glacial till cliffs.

Jurassic fossils.

Armoured mud ball.

Featured bird: Common Gull

A small, agile gull which is mainly a winter visitor and passage migrant, although individuals can be seen year round in the area. It is an amber listed species due to population declines in the UK. Most of the wintering individuals in the area come from Scandinavia. They have a preference for feeding on the ground, and can often be seen in flocks on grassy fields feeding on worms. The spring passage occurs during March and early April.

Walk information

16.7 km, circular. Start: Easington Church car park. Finish at Holmpton Seaside Rd. No public toilets.