Yorkshire East Riding: NOT your ordinary vacation destination

I keep saying I want to see ordinary life wherever I go.  I am really seeing it here.  Tourists do not come here but there is something of interest around every corner. I am the exotic foreigner here and this leads to some pleasant social interchanges.  All good.  Doesn't Yorkshire East Riding sound like something out of a medieval history book?  But it is really called that.

I am here because there is some great birdwatching on the Northeast coast of England and the Spurn Peninsula juts down into the Humber River Estuary just here.  It is famous for migrating birds, especially in the fall.  I also am targeting the City of York, for centuries the second city of England, ruled by Viking Kings when the country was divided between the Anglo-Saxons and Danes. York is a tourist destination and I will write about it separately.

My clue that my area is not a vacation destination was many many nuclear power plants on the skyline as I was lost and wandering toward my village.  Many and big.  Also, wind farms. Many and big.  The area is a mix of agriculture and energy production.  I think there is manufacturing of some kind too but what hits your eye are big tractors all over the place and big power generating structures. I drove past the North Sea Gas terminal on the coast where the North Sea gas is piped into Britain. Oil in Aberdeen, gas here.  Major strings of wires are traipsing across the landscape too taking power wherever it goes.  I am smack in the center of it. Shipping through the ports, especially at Hull looks major.  I am not sure what is going where but there are many docks for loading whatever it is.

First impressions do not necessarily do the area justice.  It did not help that I got lost on country roads after incredibly heavy traffic on the motorway.  I was lost in Sherwood Forest, near the Robin Hood airport.  Can you believe it?  Me neither.  Eventually I found my way to my destination--Pollington.

Guesthouse haven
I had chosen the B&B because it was between my two destinations and had the best rating.  No other idea in my mind.  I thought--village, I will like that.  Turns out I do but village means a collection of houses.  No implication of groceries, other services.  Forget the idea that I can find someone to cut my hair. When you are looking for services, you look for a market town.  That would be Snaith, about 5 miles away.  Learned that now.

The B&B is a house with nine rooms for rent.  It is great and deserves its good reputation on Booking.com.  My room is waiting, the place offers privacy and company.  I got to know the other guests while stumbling around getting the internet to work.  The place is crammed full.  Why? Who would come here?

My near neighbors are a couple from somewhere south here for several days at the Doncaster races.  I think I have fallen into a Dick Francis mystery.  Two fellows in the kitchen are living here more or less except weekends because they work for British Gas--really big on energy, this area.  The place is full of local people working on the newly remodeled dining room.  Every one is really nice and excited to have a foreigner visiting.  They love my accent and try to get me to talk so they can listen to my accent.  But they are interested in the birdwatching thing too.  Some actually go out birdwatching. One of the staff lives across the street and points me to where the owls are.  Another gives advice on nearby places for green woodpeckers.

Who comes here is mainly folks from England, coming for work, races or weddings at a nearby stately mansion.  Sylvia, the manager, says that they used to advertise via pamphlets but not that many folks found them.  Since she has started using Booking.com, she is always full.  They were waiting for a quiet time to do the remodeling but never had a quiet time so had to go ahead.  Yay Internet. They do get guests more exotic than me though.  Several staff had stories about a group of Chinese visitors doing Tai Chi in the garden and trying to teach them how to do it.

Wandering
Since my first day dawned sunny, I decided to get out to Spurn Point and miss predicted rain later.  I will tell you the delights of birding in a few minutes.  But the area is so interesting and unexpected, I want to explain that first.

There are major motorways here but my routes to wildlife refuges takes me on back roads and through small towns and villages.  Everything looks like a BBC village show with nuclear plants in the background.  I passed Conway Church as it was having its Heritage Festival and preparing for Harvest Festival.  Another group of really nice people who are delighted to see me and enjoy my accent.  Turns out that my coffee server, Olga, is related through grandchildren to Sylvia, my B&B host.  Someone else has a son in Houston.  The rector is a young woman who takes care of 5 churches where Snaith is the mother church.  Our little church was originally endowed by Lord someone and built about 150 years ago.  My road home takes me very near Snaith--I will have to take a look at the town. The church bulletin tells of so many activities with a big emphasis on walking the many historic footpaths in the area. I begin to see that there is a rich life to be had hereabouts.


The Ouse and Trent rivers join to form the Humber River which is really brackish--an estuary.  I am staying near the Ouse, which is navigable up river to York, making the whole area a population and industrial center from early days.  Romans used the area with a major town at York.  Population declined after the Roman army pulled out in 410 but the area was rich in fish and fertile for farming so remained an important population center, just smaller.  King Edward accepted Christianity and was baptized in York, several early Christian monastic communities were in the area.  Life was better than most places for the time.  Industry, fishing, farming and trading continued. They do now too although the fishing seems to have declined.  What I am seeing as ordinary modern life reflects much of what has gone on here for centuries.

Birds and butterflies
What else has gone on for centuries is the rich bird life which I am enjoying here this week. Spurn Point and Blacktoff Sands are the two Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB) reserves I am targeting but there are about 10 others in the immediate area.  As birds are flying south, this is a big stopover for rest and refreshment.  Godwits nest in the most north of Norway but are here in large numbers right now.

Little Egrets are here now--I saw 12 total--but were virtually unknown here 3 years ago. They will leave for the winter but it is thought that they are moving their range northward because of climate warming.  Local birders are still really excited to see them.

We have had an easterly wind which has brought in flights of Red Admiral butterflies, pictured at top of post.  I find them perching on every surface.  Red admirals summer as far as mid-Scotland and northern Europe. Now butterflies from Denmark and Holland are migrating along the east coast of England, will cross the channel to France and eventually winter in Africa.  Later generations will return.Many ducks, many other shorebirds.  Perching birds are blown in too but my eye is not trained for them and I miss a lot.  But--a pied flycatcher is using a twig above my car for his hunting perch.  Two days of great birding.

I am delighted with the interest in birding all around.  It is mainly locals at the reserves--again, enjoying my accent, glad to show me things in their big scopes.  A bus load of folks from Newcastle came in today. Imagine a busload of people that interested in marsh harriers and spotted redshanks. We were in the hides together and I benefited from their spotting and knowledge.  What fun.

I tried to stop at the church in Snaith, mother church for many of the active village churches around including for Conway where I was so welcomed earlier and for my home village of Pollington. I could see it on the horizon, saw signs to the historic abbey. Ha! Could not figure it out. Oh well--home to my cozy village. Then I had the pleasure of telling my fellows at the B&B about my birds.

Despite being surrounded by nuclear power plants, this has turned out to be a great little stay. However, I still need a haircut.

My trusty steed for migrating around England.