Friday 11th June 2004
Day 5
We began the day with a spot of sight seeing at Robin Hood’s Bay which was very pretty. We then drove round to Ravenscar at the southern end of the bay and had good views back to Robin Hood’s Bay. We parked the car and walked along the cliff top, once again this path is part of the Cleveland way. Almost the first thing we saw was an adder sunbathing in the pathway. It slipped away in to the undergrowth before we could get a photograph. Here the cliffs are up to 585ft high and far below us little specks were herring gulls, kittiwake and fulmars. A whitethroat was first heard, then seen, on the cliff top as was chaffinch, house sparrow, swift, house martin and skylark. We spotted what we first thought was a spotted flycatcher, due to the fact it was seen collecting flies and had a beak full. Closer inspection, and it did let us get quite close, revealed it to be a chiffchaff, although we never once heard it give the ‘chiff-chaff’ call.
We walked along until we came to an abandoned lookout point. A plaque revealed that it was used at a war watch point in World War 2 that by the coastguard until the early seventies. From this point we retraced our steps and we spotted a female roe deer grazing happily half way down the steep cliff. Kay spotted, and photographed, painted lady, wall brown and small heath butterflies.
Our next stop was Forge Valley. Here we stopped at ‘Birdwatcher’s Car Park’ This is a small pull off area with half a dozen bird tables. Chaffinch, blue tit, great tit, coal tit and nuthatch all came to the tables as did two grey squirrels.
We drove another 350 yards south and parked at ‘Old Man’s Mouth Picnic Site’. A bridge leads over the River Derwent to a boardwalk along the river’s edge. We turned left and started walking along the path. Almost immediately a small brown bird flew up the river towards us. It must have seen us for it turned sharply, flashing a white breast, and headed back down the river. Dipper!! It perched on a branch lying in the river and we had great views of it. It then hopped in to the river and we could see it feeding, dipping it whole head and sometimes it’s whole body under the fast flowing water. When it was disturbed by a passing walker it flew further down the river to perch on a branch over hanging the water where it sat preening. We waited, hidden behind a tree, hoping that it would come back to where it was feeding but it seemed content to stay where it was so after a while we walked on.
We saw families of great tits, coal tits and marsh tits. The marsh tits, 2 adults and 5 youngsters, came really close as we sat on a bench watching. They can’t have fledged long ago as the adults were feeding the youngsters, who in turn were following the adults from branch to branch. We also saw two spotted flycatchers, chaffinches, robin, blackbirds, crow and jackdaws. As the evening started to draw in we saw around 50 swifts in the sky above us.
This was a great place and a lovely walk, which was only spoilt as we turned to go back to the car by a bloke throwing sticks in the river for his dog to fetch. We had hoped to catch another glimpse of the dipper but needless to say it had been scared off.
On our way back to the caravan we passed Throckston Mere which held one grey heron, three greylag geese and a handful of mallard
Saturday 12th June 2004
Day 6
The last day of our holiday and what better way to finish it than with a return trip to Bempton Cliffs. We had handed our caravan keys in at 8.30 and were on the cliff top by 9. Once again the sights and sounds were amazing. We headed south along the cliff top to view the gannets. The skipper of the Yorkshire Belle had said that some of the gannets had chicks and we were curious as we hadn’t noticed them last time.
As we walked along we came across a guy standing at one of the watch points, and near to him a rope was tied to the fence and led down a gully to the base of the cliff. With the binoculars I could see a red bag down there which looked like a tripod bag or maybe a fishing rod bag.
We walked on and got some more amazing photos of gannets in flight. And yes the gannets did have chicks, some of them so huge that they must have been there on Tuesday and somehow we missed them. We spent a happy hour watching all the birds, gannets, kittiwakes, guillemots, puffins and razorbills, before heading back to the car. We asked a warden about the rope and he said they were probably fishing. Apparently the cod under the cliffs are very large!
Then it was time to start the long drive back home after a truly wonderful holiday.
Nice report Kay & Col, I have spent many happy hours at Bempton, it is a wonderful place! Nice photos, well captured