Northumberland Coast

Just come back from a couple of days on the Northumberland coast, which was windy, cold but indescribably beautiful.

Cullernose point.......

.......with its breeding colony of  kittiwakes and fulmars, which also has .....



.... sea spleenwort fern growing is fissures beside the seabirds' nests.

Gorse, between Craster and Dunstanburgh flowering more profusely than I can ever remember and, appropriately, providing a perch for this ....

















... stonechat (??)

Primroses by the sea near Craster

Sea pink Armeria maritima blooming in a rock crevice at Cullernose point

The other common name for sea pink is thrift, a virtue that it was used to symbolise on the old pre-decimalisation brass threepenny pieces.. 

Scurvy grass flowering on the wall of Craster harbour

Knotted wrack Ascophyllum nodosum on the intertidal rocks at Low Newton, along with ....

... channelled wrack Pelvetia canaliculata growing around a rock pool

Kittiwake cacophony

The Tyne Bridge in Newcastle, and the buildings around it, are famous for hosting the largest inland breeding colony of kittiwakes in the world, offering unrivalled opportunities to watch the behaviour of these birds. The noise can be deafening. These two were exchanging greetings today. 

Click here for more about the Tyne Bridge kittiwake colony - and watch a film about these wonderful birds by Cain Scrimgeour

Fulmars and Gorse

We spent the afternoon on the Northumberland coast, setting out to walk from Craster (after lunch in the Jolly Fisherman) to Howick, but only made it half way before the weather turned nasty. We left the pub in bright sunshine but there were already dark clouds on the western horizon. The display of gorse along this stretch of coastline at the moment is stunning – it’s so bright you could get a suntan just from looking at it. Its coconut scent is wonderful, although you needed to get pretty close to appreciate it today, with a strong, blustery wind blowing its fragrance out to sea. The kittiwake colony at Cullernose point was a cacophony of birds, perched on their narrow nesting ledges, but it was the fulmars that I really wanted to photograph. If ever there was a bird that seems to exalt in its power of flight, surely it’s this one, gliding along the edge of the cliffs with scarcely a flap of its wings, effortlessly riding the updraft. They passed so close that we could see the turbulence over their wings ruffling their feathers; too close most of the time, whizzing past so fast that nine out of every ten photographs were out of focus. I could watch these birds all day – but not today, because then the rain arrived - horizontal, driving rain. We were soaked by the time we got back to the car, but we'll be back.