Trip to Saltmarsh-Theddleford Dunes

A rare trip further afield today, as I managed to hitch a ride to the Lincolnshire coast and enjoy a long walk in sea air.

Or rather I was dumped by my parents while they went for a sit at Sutton on Sea, while I, abandoned in a land I did not now, tried to make my way across to them.

My walk started at Rimac, the curiously industrially named area of Saltmarsh-Theddlethorpe Dunes where a ship of that title was wrecked in the 1800s. The walk to the sea - seemingly 5 miles out at this point, was not recommended by a passer by, and so I instead set off among the dunes, past little ponds and odd little clumps of late flowers amidst the hawthorn and brutally spiny sea buckthorn.

The notice boards said insect life was in short supply now, and indeed I only saw a couple of red admirals and a small tortoiseshell, but there were a lot of common darters still on the wing. Above me three echelons of pink footed geese sailed high overhead emitting their honks, much higher pitched than the canada geese calls I'm used to. But there weren't many birds in the dunes, aside from a few birds popping out of the long grass to make no headway into the strong wind - meadow pipits possibly.

The route was occasionally difficult, but it was a fabulous day for walking.

Eventually, past Theddlethorpe, the dune path runs out and you are forced out on to to marshy margins of the beach. Initially the golden sands are a long way off, but eventually the marshy margins run out and you find yourself on a vast sandy expanse peppered with the odd black backed gull (sadly, no wading birds), and with a flood tide limit of crushed razor shells and plastic human detritus, a problem that seemed to increase as I neared Mablethorpe.

Eventually I baled out of the beach, and found myself at a real "Kiss me quick, squeeze me slowly" part of Mablethorpe North End. This, however, was nothing compared to the town centre, which was Skegness like in its awfulness. Luckily we just drove through there.

We made our way to Huttoft, where a solitary pale wader skimmed the waves - a sanderling possibly - and I rescued a stranded, flapping whiting, before rewarding myself with an utterly superior mint choc chip 99!

What a splendid day!

Rimic info board

The salt marsh

Sea Buckthorn, as eaten by Ray Mears

Viper bugloss - what a fab name for a plant

Pretty in pink (but unknown)

Fungus

A high dune

Marsh creek

Female common darter

Further along

Warning of possible sudden death

Strip of golden sand

Stubble burning

Sandy expanse

WW2 pill box

Crook Bank board

Razer shells

Pretty shell, Huttoft

Another pill box

Looking back on my footprints

Mablethorpe North End

The horrors of Mablethorpe

Scott Mills on Strictly dropped his shell

The whiting I rescued

Razor shell

Chilled out fishing

Fishing in front of the huge offshore wind farm

YES!!!!

Razor shells at high water

Trip to Holkham Beach!!!

THis is a new one for me; In fact I haven't been in Norfolk since a school trip to Hunstanton when I was 10  - three nights in Le Strange Hotel, rampaging around the beach and garden; finding a nest of baby Plovers on the beach as the parent did the wounded walk away from me...

Holkham is a bit further round from Hunstanton, and in fact the park up for food and Iain M. Banks reading pre walk session was at Burnham on Sea - where a narrow tide out creek provided peoplewatching amusement as yummy mummies carried babies in ridiculous pappooses; dogs gambolled in the shallows, and paddleboarders and canoeists tried to make headway in ankle deep water.

I got some provisions - multiple diet coke cans - and headed out on the path, this red ironstone path (if such a thing exists!) that I remember forming a layer at the cliffs at Hunstanton all those years ago. All seemed a bit drab at first; a few gulls, endless cormorants, some dull old coots on a pond, but soon I saw a V shaped flock of Geese overhead and as I learned later they weren't borinhg old Greylag or Canada-Drooping-Machines-Geese, but were Pink Footed Geese on the move to and from Wells.

Pausing at a corner on the path where the creek heads for the sea and a large area of Salt Marsh begin, I scanned the area with my 10x50s and saw a low lying group of little birdie heads in the mid length grasses behind a bored looking gull. Dark faces, specly bodies. I figured them for some sort of Plover, and a kindly typical old twitcher type I asked told me they were Golden Plovers just down from their breeding season in the hills. Big new spot for a rubbish birder like me!!! He got me excited with tales of a Marsh Harrier, but I never saw it.

A couple of Egrets were also doing their snow white work in the little ponds and creeks. Had a good look at the these most elegant of birds.

After what seemed like an age, walking along the track, wondering what these small flocks of birds were occasionally flitting across in front of me - I guessed almost certainly wrongly they were some kind of pipit - I got to the beach and wandered around, taking in the sight of an endless carpet of razer shells marking the High Water line, pink crab shells interspersed within.

No little terns nesting in the protected area and only a few gulls to see, and turned round for home. On the way back, found large flock of waders probing the mudflats. As I half guessed right at the time, another new spot for me - Redshank, with the fine black and white striping on their tails. Not Godwit, you fool! *punches self*

Back at the car park, more Vs of Pink Footed Geese came the other way - could see the pink feet in the binoculars - and eventually stopping off at Brancaster, spotted a Turnstone rapid dancing the creek edge. A skittery and very pretty little bird, that.