Cayton Bay, Sea Birds and Bats

Today, I enjoyed my first trip to the coast in nearly two years! 

Driving over, I passed a field full of linseed which was a pleasant sight, and I noticed some Dryad's saddle fungus too.

I had chosen Cayton Bay to see the sea, hoping it would be a pleasant beach and it was. The sun broke through the last of the cloud soon after I arrived too! I didn't do a lot there; a look in the rock pools, dipping my feet in the sea and then just sitting and enjoying the sound of the sea and reading a little.

The largest pool was full of these, which I think are young sand eels.

crane fly

As it wasn't far away, I decided to make a brief visit to Bempton Cliffs on the way home. There, I saw the usual birds - gannets, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and puffins, plus tree sparrows.

There were also a few bugs, of course, including the red and black froghopper (Cercopis vulnerata) and a pill bug.

My time outdoors didn't end there though! Home for a few days this week is a former chapel and so this evening, around 10pm, I took the bat detector out for a walk in the neighbouring cemetery. I saw two species of bat - common pipistrelle and another one that I'm not sure about off the top of my head but was much larger than a pipistrelle and I'd hazard a guess at Brown Long Eared. There were also a few cockchafers around. I could hear them buzzing in the air and also walking around in grass and on the shrubs as well as see them flying by.

Home for a few days

30 Days Wild begins properly tomorrow... I don't have a single thing planned for it yet, I'll just take it a day at a time and see where it takes me :)

Allerthorpe Common and Millington Woods

It's half term this week which means some extra free time to get outdoors so it feels like 30 Days Wild has started early for me!

This is the first school holiday for a long time where I have free time - I've finally moved house so I'm not spending my free time working on the house (though there's still plenty left to do there!).

 Yesterday, I had walks in two different locations - the first time I've walked and immersed myself in nature for far too long!

Allerthorpe Common is an SSSI and Nature Reserve in East Yorkshire, a returning lowland heath with a whole variety of flora and fauna. Wednesday was overcast and grey, damp and drizzly, but that didn't deter me from heading out and I spent a great few hours wandering around Allerthorpe. There wasn't as much wildlife to see as there might have been in warmer, sunnier weather but there was a cuckoo calling throughout my time there, along with yellow hammers, chiff chaffs and whitethroats both heard and seen. I spotted several insects as well, of course...

(I've only named species I knew in this post as I'm not at home right now so don't have access to my usual books to look anything up!)

speedwell

click beetle

common heath moth

'looper'

Some kind of Tortrix month, I think.

My first little grasshopper of the year

A short drive away is Millington Wood, apparently the richest botanical woodland in the East Riding of Yorkshire...

This was a delightful short walk, in the drizzle, after a heavier shower. Many slugs and snails had come out after the rain and the whole walk was filled with the scents of wild garlic and cow parsley.

wild garlic

Millington Wood sits in a valley and at one end of the wood is this view point, looking out across the tree tops.

It's surrounded by farmland, and at this time of the year, some the fields are yellow with rapeseed.

Lords and Ladies, or Cuckoo Pint

Wood Avens

Red legged partridge, we saw quite a few of these today.

Two sites I would definitely like to return to one day.