Winter walk… we had a wonderful day on Sunday 17th January…

looking back towards Staithes

sparkling… bright… weather…  what a wonderful day… lovely company… a few bits of jet… plenty fossils… birds a bit thin on the ground… photos here

Classic day on the foreshore…

We have a winter course this Sunday 17th January… so Tricia dropped me off at the top of Port Mulgrave to walk down with the first load of supplies  and check the hut over… but it was really just an excuse to be able to walk home along the foreshore… the weather was glorious… sharp…  clear & beautiful sunshine…

with so much snow inland and with the cliffs and foreshore been clear it seems that every bird has come to us…  I saw a woodcock… lots of shore pippets… oyster catchers by the bucketful… curlew & whimbrels are becoming quite common…and too many others to mention…

but of course been a fisherman at heart there is only one thing better.. when beach combing…  than finding a fender and that’s finding two…

beach combing - classic haul

but didn’t see my old friend the peregrine…

the foreshore at it’s best…

over the holiday period we have been on some great walks… one was up to the alum mines at the top of Boulby… with the snow on the ground the usually desolate scenery was more impressive than it normal is…

alum mines at Boulby - with a dusting of snow...

Today’s walk was only a short one because of the constant snow showers… for the last few weeks the wind has either been easterly or northerly which is the best direction for washing flotsam & jetsam ashore…  a couple of days ago I set out to walk north of  Staithes as the tide dropped but found someone had beaten me under the cliffs onto the foreshore… however… today the weather has been so horrendous  (in normal peoples opinion)…  that I had the whole of the foreshore to myself… with my hood up & snow showers to my back pushing me along it was almost balmy… I walked as far as the south end of Bias Scar… where I was sure that some jet would have been washed up…  to my delight I was rewarded with this lovely piece of jet to add to our collection…

On the way to Bias Scar I had found a pot maker & two floats … these I laid up on the cliff in the traditional manner (traditionally if something is stood upright against the cliff it means that the finder is going to return for it… however… anything left over two tides is usually fair game)…

With the jet in my pocket and my treasure on my back I set off for home… walking back… in between snow showers I was lucky enough to spot a female peregrine falcon hovering over one of her normal haunts at Cowbar… I’d not seen a peregrine for a few weeks now it was a pleasure to see that at least one was surviving in this weather…

Best wishes…

The Cleveland Way footpath between Port Mulgrave & Staithes…

Best wishes for 2010….

from Sean… Tricia… Thomas… Luke…

& Tiff

Winter walk…

we have had a request for a ‘winter walk’… so we’ve checked the tides…  and we are happy to say that we will be running a ‘winter walk’ on Sunday 17th January 2010… it will follow our ‘day course‘ format… do come and join us…

hot soup is on the lunch menu… as well as lobster…

Hello…

and Welcome to ‘real staithes’ blog… here we will keep you up to date with what’s happen here in Staithes in general… and at ‘real staithes’ in particular…