Category: Coast

Mosey Downgate

cliff
kittiwakes

Mosey Downgate, RSPB Bempton Cliffs, 12.30 pm, Thursday 6 July, 69℉ 24℃: Most of the kittiwake chicks now have conspicuous black stripes along their forewings, although there are some downy chicks still around. One birdwatcher tells me that he was here a month ago and he estimates there are now three times as many nesting.

The warden suggests that this impression might be because a month ago many of the pairs were nest building and spending more time away from the cliffs. Kittiwake numbers are stable at Bempton but nationally the bird is in decline, so the wardens are keeping a close watch on numbers.

Whelk Egg Cases

whelk egg cases

Whelks gather together for a mass spawning, so each of these egg cases was added by a different individual. Each case can contain 1,000 eggs but the first few to hatch will feed on the remaining eggs.

Procreate drawing

I photographed this egg mass on the beach at Druridge Bay and used a handy feature of Procreate, a reference image panel, when I drew it using Procreate’s ‘Technical Pen’.

Whitby Jet?

Whitby jet

Planting the runner beans yesterday I came across this bead – or perhaps I should call it a stud, as the cylindrical cavity in it doesn’t go right through. It’s exactly one centimetre across.

Whitby jet

In close up you can see that it’s not cut with machine precision. That could be clay that’s filled the cavity but I’m leaving it in place for the moment in case it’s a part of the original artefact – some kind of cement, for instance?

Yorkshire Rock book

As I explain in my book Yorkshire Rock, a journey through time, Whitby Jet is fossil monkey puzzle wood from the Jurassic Period, used by the Victorians for making jewellery.

We’re meeting up with some friends, Jenny and Clive, on holiday at Whitby in July and Jenny, who has never visited is determined to find a piece of Whitby Jet on the beach. That could easily take up the entire holiday, so perhaps we better take this piece as a stand-by.

Link

Yorkshire Rock

Yorkshire Rock, a journey through time, available from my Willow Island Editions website

Broadstairs 1973

Broadstairs

Another dip into my student sketchbook from 50 years ago and I was visiting Christopher and Doreen Reynolds in Broadstairs. I’d written about Christopher and his approach to natural history illustration and writing as a closing section in my thesis at Leeds College of Art but this was the first time I’d met him.

It was so useful to go beachcombing ‘with someone who could not only say what the shells and washed up animals and plants were but could also, if prompted, come up with some interesting observation about it.’

He was writing and illustrating his children’s non-fiction book Creatures of the Bay at that time.

Sea Mayweed

I’d normally assume that this was scentless mayweed but as it was growing at the top of the sandy beach at the foot of the sea wall at North Beach, Bridlington, I’m going for its near-identical relative, sea mayweed, Tripleurospermum maritimum.

Turnstones

turnstones

As always, at Bridlington last week, I was amazed how tolerant turnstones are of people and dogs walking by just a few yards away.

New Rolltop

Bempton
Bempton Cliffs from the New Rolltop viewing point.

Bridlington may be ‘West Riding by the Sea’, the most traditionally familiar of Yorkshire’s seaside resorts, but with Flamborough Head jutting out at the end of North Bay, you’re soon on a wilder-looking stretch of coast. I was sorry to hear that the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust had reluctantly decided to close their Living Seas Centre at South Landing to all except booked-in parties but we’re glad that RSPB Bempton is so popular.

Harbour Gulls

gull sketches

A low tide had exposed all the mud in Bridlington Harbour, attracting turnstones and redshank. This adult herring gull was in streaky-headed non-breeding plumage but it had raised a chick during the summer, which was still following, hunching itself up as it begged, fairly continuously, for food.

gull

The adult looked embarrassed by the attention but I didn’t see it offer the youngster any food.

herring gull juvenile
lobster pots
Lobster pots, Bridlington Harbour

Cod

cod

Cod, Gadus morhua, washed up amongst the kelp from the strandline on Druridge Bay near Hauxley, Northumberland.

cod

Selwicks Bay

Selwicks Bay

Dipping back in my A-level field notebook and in those pre-digital days, I found that colour prints could be more useful than slides, as I could stick them in my notebook. Here I’ve indicated a fault in the wave-cut platform of Selwicks Bay, Flamborough Head.

Flints in Chalk

flints
Flints in chalk

Flints are exposed in the chalk of the wave-cut platform south of the fault. Flints like these may have formed when the silica-rich skeletons of sponges and other creatures formed a gel on the seafloor which was drawn down into burrows in the chalk ooze – hence the shape of the nodules.

Buttress of Contorted Chalk

RockWATCH group guided around the features of the bay by geologist Richard Myerscough.

We looked at a buttress of contorted chalk south of the fault. The chalk contorted by the fault has been re-cemented by calcite-rich fluids circulating through the rock and depositing veins of calcite.

Strengthened by this cement the chalk is harder than that surrounding it and it has withstood erosion and formed a buttress.

Contorted Chalk with Calcite Veins

calcite vein

This vein is exposed on the wave-cut platform in front of the buttress.

Tilted layers near at the fault plane
Fault breccia: chalk crushed by movement along the fault
Fault and crush zone, Selwicks Bay, Flamborough Head