Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Category: Redcar

  • A lone Redshank amongst a flock of sleeping Oystercatchers

    A lone Redshank amongst a flock of sleeping Oystercatchers

    A mooch around South Gare at the mouth of the Tees. Twitchers were twitching over a black-throated diver. Apparently. But it was so far away I couldn’t make out any detail. Could well have been a cormorant as far as I knew. Instead, a lone Redshank amongst a flock of sleeping Oystercatchers caught my attention.…

  • A murmuration of starlings

    A murmuration of starlings

    One of nature’s spectacles and another tick off my bucket list. And so close to home, Coatham Marshes at Redcar, in the shadow of the skeleton of the old blast furnace. We waited and waited, was just about to move on to the South Gare to catch the sunset when things happened. A few flocks…

  • Petrified forest, Redcar Sands

    Petrified forest, Redcar Sands

    Every so often, after a particularly fierce storm, petrified tree stumps appear out of the sands on the beach at Redcar, only to be buried again a few weeks later. The last time was 2013. Last week’s Beast from the East scoured away a vast tract of sand revealing several tree stumps, fallen logs and…

  • South Gare

    South Gare

    I think Redcar and Cleveland Council are missing a trick. South Gare, on a winter weekday morning was very busy. Dog walkers, bird watchers, folks just enjoying the bracing sea air, no fishermen this time though, must be the wrong time of tide. Yet the tip of the gare is fenced off, barred to the…

  • The Stray

    The Stray

    Almost 100 years ago this peaceful scene along The Stray between Redcar and Marske was full of military activity. Out at sea ships carried vital supplies up and down the coast in a channel constantly swept clear by minesweepers and protected by cruisers. Above them, airships kept a watch for the wake left by German…

  • Pillbox, South Gare

    Pillbox, South Gare

    I went orienteering today … at South Gare, a complex area of sand dunes and reclaimed land created over 150 years of iron production. A bit rusty. Should have picked an easier area. A leg along the beach went past this World War II pillbox almost buried in the sand. Pillboxes were hastily constructed after the fall of…

  • Paddys’ Hole

    Paddys’ Hole

    A small man-made harbour at South Gare at the mouth of the Tees. Named after the Irish navvies who built the South Gare from slag from Teesside’s blast furnaces.

  • Redcar Sands

    Redcar Sands

    The £1.6m “vertical pier” dominating the sea front.