Last weekend I decided to go for an overnight trip down into the North York Moors - taking my tent with me on my bike and camping somewhere before heading back the next day. The idea for this came because a Black-browed Albatross had been hanging out for a few days at the RSPB's Bempton Cliffs reserve near Bridlington and I thought I might be able to cycle down there to try and get in onto my NMT list. According to Google Maps it would be a 60-something mile journey, going straight through the Moors, so I thought I could probably manage it there and back in two days.
Thankfully, by the time the weekend came, the bird had not been seen for a day or two so I decided on the shorter journey down to Rosedale Abbey, in the heart of the Moors, where there is a really nice campsite that Sue and I stayed at a couple of years ago (and they do a special rate for backpackers (including 'bike-packers'). I say 'thankfully' because I realised long before arriving at Rosedale Abbey that there was absolutely no way I would have made it to Bempton (almost three times as far away from my house).
The route that Google Maps took me on, and which I foolishly followed without checking the steepness of some of the hills, took me up a slope on a Forestry Commission track, called Ingleby Incline, which used to be a railway line for the ironstone quarrying industry. It was so steep that the only way they could get the empty wagons up to the top was by using the full ones going down the parallel track, connected by pulleys, to pull the empty ones up as they descended. I didn't realise this until I got to the bottom of the slope. I managed to push the laden bike (with bags weighing 24kg) a third of the way up before I had to take the bags off and carry/push everything up separately in several stages. Luckily it was a very quiet path used by hardly anyone else, so none of my stuff got nicked when I left it unattended. It took me about an hour to get all my stuff up a mile of track.
Luckily, once I was at the top of Ingleby Incline, most of the rest of the way to Rosedale Abbey was either level or downhill, but nonetheless, when I got to the campsite I had to lie on the ground for a while before attempting to put my tent up. Once I had it up a very friendly couple, Ian and Sue from Doncaster, took pity on me and gave me a very welcome cold beer (Hobgoblin Gold - delicious).
Despite the rigours of the journey I was able to see and hear a lot of birds although, sadly, nothing that was new for my NMT list. I had been hoping that I might add Golden Plover, Redstart and possibly even a Short-eared or Little Owl to the list but the closest I came was a bird calling at the top of High Blakey Moor that I think was probably a Golden Plover. However, I couldn't get a view of it and I started to doubt myself afterwards and wonder if it might just have been a slightly odd-sounding Curlew - a species that seems to be still doing fairly well in the North York Moors (unlike in much of its former range) and which I saw and heard many times over the two days.
Very close to where I heard the possible Golden Plover I came across a lovely Ring Ouzel, my second of the year (see my blog from the 6th of April for more about this species - http://northormesbynaturalist.blogspot.com/2021/04/one-rareish-bird-what-is-ouzel-and-mini.html). Other birds I saw or heard included a pair of Stonechats scolding me as I had my lunch (and got my breath back) at the top of Ingleby Incline, good numbers of Yellowhammers, Skylarks and Meadow Pipits still singing, and occasional Lapwings and Oystercatchers in the grassy areas of the moors.
Although I had no new birds for the year I did see a couple of plant species that were new to me - one welcome and one not so welcome. The welcome one was Wood Horsetail (Equisetum sylvaticum). Horsetails are primitive fern-like plants, that reproduce by spores and so don't have flowers. There are several species found in the UK - most are uncommon or rare, although you may know the commonest, Field Horsetail, which is often incorrectly referred to as Mares-tail, and which can be a problem plant if it gets into your garden. Wood Horsetail, however, is one of the less common ones and is usually found in wet woodlands and mountain slopes. It is the only British Horsetail where the 'branches' (the long thin bits coming off the vertical stem) are themselves branched. This gives the plant a rather feathery look, which you can perhaps see in this (rather poor) photograph.
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| Wood Horsetail in damp woodland above Rosedale Abbey, North Yorkshire |
The other, less welcome, new plant that I saw was an 'alien invader' - a plant called Alpine Cotula (Cotula alpina) originally from south-east Australia which has started to become established in a few parts of upland England and one area on the north-west coast of Scotland. In England it is mostly found along roadsides in the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, and doesn't seem to be spreading much from there, but in Scotland it is becoming a bit of a problem by taking over areas of short coastal turf which previously had a great diversity of plant species. I have seen two other species of Cotula (also known as Buttonweeds) in London so as soon as I saw this one I wondered if it was one of these. Not having any books with me (my camping stuff made my bags heavy enough as it was) I couldn't check it properly and later started to doubt myself, deciding instead that it was a young stage of Pineappleweed - another alien invader but one that has been established here for a very long time. It was only when I got home and put the pictures on a Facebook botany group that someone (a very experienced botanist from the Yorkshire Dales) told me what it was.
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| Alpine Cotula, growing by the roadside above Hob Hole in the North York Moors. Personally, I think 'Alpine Buttonweed' would be a better name for this species as the others in the genus Cotula are called Buttonweeds |
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| Just next to the Cotula were several interesting native plants including Bog Pimpernel (the pale pink flower in this photo), and Common Yellow-sedge (the grass-like plant with the little spiky flower heads looking like the sort of mace carried by a cartoon mediaeval knight) |
I'll finish this blog with a brief summary of the time since my (exhausting) Moors trip, and explain why I haven't seen very many birds for most of the last week and probably won't before at least Friday of this week.
The day after I got back from Rosedale Abbey Sue and I went to visit two old friends in a small market town in County Durham and while they were there I made a little pilgrimage to the rare plant that I discovered there two years ago and which long-time readers of this blog might remember me writing about back then (Four-leaved Allseed - Polycarpon tetraphyllum). I was very pleased to see the colony still there and looking healthy.
On the Monday I decided to have a day off work and cycled over to Dormans Pool (part of the Saltholme complex of pools and marshes) to try and get a look at some Bearded Tits that had been seen a couple of times in the preceding days. This is a pretty rare species in Britain and is restricted to reedbeds. I've been trying to see them at Dormans since I started my NMT list, but have had no luck, mainly because they are shy birds that stay hidden in the reeds most of the time. Sadly, despite standing at the edge of the reedbed for an hour and a half I only saw Reed Buntings, Reed Warblers and lots of the usual waterbirds, although a Marsh Harrier did brighten up the day. On the way home I saw several species of ducks with young, including my first ever sighting of Pochard ducklings.
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| Adult female Pochard (right-hand bird) with four well grown ducklings - Saltholme area, 5th July 2021. There was another group of younger, still fluffy, Pochard ducklings in the same place but I didn't get any good photos |
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| Adult female Gadwall with ducklings - Saltholme area, 5th July 2021. |
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| Adult female Shelduck with well grown young - Billingham Beck, 5th July 2021 |
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| Great Crested Grebe chick - Saltholme area, 5th July 2021. This one is quite well grown but still retains some of the stripeyness that makes the young ones look like mint humbugs |
Even more sadly than not seeing Bearded Tits, on arriving home I learned that one of my family members had tested positive for Covid and that we would all have to isolate in the house for at least the next ten days - which explains why I haven't seen many birds since then and probably won't til at least the end of the week. Thankfully, the person who has Covid is young and fit and is so far not seriously ill and the rest of us have had at least one dose of the vaccine. Also, so far, none of the rest of us have tested positive, so maybe we'll be free on Friday. In the meantime I'm spending as much time as I can in the garden, learning a new appreciation of Herring Gulls and the occasional Swift, and keeping my eyes open for something exciting like an overflying Osprey or a Black-browed Albatross talking a little excursion from Bempton Cliffs.
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