A Day In Sunny Hunny

Every year, at about this time, the people of land-locked Cambridgeshire are seized by a sudden urge to visit the coast. Hunstanton is the nearest and most obvious place to go. From early forays with buckets and spades, to teenage adventures sleeping in beach huts, to later excursions taking elderly parents out for the day, right through to recent visits in search of shorebirds and seabirds - most of them came up for discussion during the course of a recent visit with my brother to "Sunny Hunny", as Hunstanton is less formally known.

St Edmund's Point

St Edmund's point is at the north end of Hunstanton's famous cliffs. There are miles of flat sands to explore, though our usual walk eastwards has been somewhat hampered and restricted by recent changes in the water channel, which drains out the last dregs of the tide.

Hunst'on Beach 

Despite there being a clear line of cliffs at Hunstanton, just a little further east the division of land and sea becomes very indistinct. Twice a day the sea comes in and covers everything, then it withdraws in a half-hearted sort of way leaving pools and channels all over the beach and sandbanks way out to sea.

Over The Dunes And On To The Beach or

"Look at the lully blue sky!"

"Look at the lully (lovely) blue sky!" was first excitedly uttered by my mum's great friend Agnes on an early bus-excursion to the seaside - it's been a catchphrase in the family ever since and must have been repeated every time we've been here.

Beach Colours

The beach huts here are more subtly painted than elsewhere (though there is one pink and purple one among them), but none more tastefully than the sand and sky blue one pictured here.

The Lighthouse

The lighthouse has long since lost its light and is now used as holiday accommodation. It dates from 1840, though a wooden lighthouse stood on the same spot before that. Lights may well have been displayed from the nearby St Edmund's Chapel in the more distant past. This most recent lighthouse was still known as "Chapel Light" in its early days.

The South Beach

The South Beach can be reached by descending a short flight of steps from the amusements, fish and chip shops and candy-floss stalls on the promenade. Later in summer it will be crowded with families with small children, but for now it's the site for school students involved in a surveying exercise.

Fulmar heading north

That "seagull" is not a "seagull" at all. It's a Fulmar, which is more closely related to albatrosses than gulls.

Fulmar heading south

For centuries they were confined to the islands of St Kilda, far out in the Atlantic, but spread into the rest of Scotland in the nineteenth century and into England by 1930. It took them till the 1960s to reach these cliffs.

Wave-Cut Bench

The cliff-line at Hunstanton recedes every winter as storm waves undercut the cliffs and rock topples down. The "wave-cut bench" is the geologist's term for the rock that's left once the seas have done their work and the cliffs have retreated further inland. The flat rocks that remain really do make comfortable benches for the weary wanderer.

Coloured Cliffs

The red colouration is entirely due to iron impurities in the rock.

It's Written In Stone

Where the red and white rocks meet you sometimes get some interesting patterns. I remember being fascinated by these rocks when I was a little boy - and I still find them interesting today.

The Wreck Of The Sheraton

The S T Sheraton was built as a steam-powered trawler, but served in both world wars as a patrol vessel. At the end of WWII it was moored offshore here to serve as a target for trainee bomber pilots. In 1947 she broke free from her moorings during a storm and ran aground beneath Hunstanton cliffs, where she remains to this day.

The Sea As Sculptor

A small part of the Sheraton forms this unintentional free-standing piece. I really should have spent more time photographing the colours and textures of the wreck's rusted carcass. But that will have to wait for another day in Sunny Hunny.

Take care.

Little Beauties

Let me introduce you to some very small friends that I've been trying to learn about on my recent walks....

There are a lot more of these little beings around than you might realise. Here I stooped to photograph one, noticed another nearby, then found one more when I looked at the shot on the computer. Left to right: a Seven-Spot Ladybird, some sort of Skipper butterfly and an unidentified fly lurking in the shadows.

A Common Darter pauses (and poses) on a little fishing platform on a village pond. They are not at all difficult to find, though they don't always co-operate with the photographer. They are also a bit tricky in that they change colour depending on their age....

Here's a less mature male. If you look really closely you can see a yellowish stripe on the legs which confirms they are both Common Darters, though I confess I can rarely see this until I look at the photos.

No problems with this little butterfly - at least not once it settles. It's a Small Copper, which always gets a smile in this part of the world; "copper" being the everyday word for a policeman.

If you're a small, defenceless hoverfly it's a good idea to look like one of the hard gang, like a wasp for example. Its disguise is good enough to fool most predators (and many people). Its Sunday name is Helophilus pendulus, but its stripy thorax gives it the nickname of "the footballer". 

This slender (almost to the point of invisibility) damselfly is probably a Willow Emerald. If not for the sun catching its wings I'd have passed by without noticing it.

It's pretty enough to be a butterfly, but in fact it's a Five-Spot Burnet moth. 

A Gatekeeper butterfly feeds on the nectar of some Ragwort. It gets its common name from its habit of hanging around near gates, though its other name of Hedge Brown suggests that you might find it anywhere along a hedgerow. Perhaps it's just that we see it as we pass through the gates.

This gorgeous fellow is a male Southern Hawker, another fairly common dragonfly in the UK. Females are only slightly less jewel-like being just lime-green and black, lacking the bright blue colour.

And we'll finish off with a Painted Lady butterfly. They are a migratory species that arrives here from Europe during some summers, though they seem to be getting more frequent in recent years.

Take care.

Sandy Tracks

A slightly cooler day with temperatures just perfect for a walk, so we made the short journey to the RSPB's headquarters at Sandy Warren, a fairly frequent destination for my brother and me. 

After a journey through the wide wheat fields of South Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire it is always a delight to find yourself in the very different landscape along the Greensand Ridge, an outcrop of sandstone that forms a low series of hills, dominated by woods and heathland.

The RSPB are trying to restore more of the area to heathland, which it is hoped will attract specialist birds like Nightjar, Woodlark and Dartford Warbler - and there has already been some success in this endeavour.

Not that we ever see that many birds on our visits here, but there's always something to photograph. The bracken always interests me as it's a plant seldom encountered in my home area, though it's by no means uncommon elsewhere. In fact it can become a nuisance, overwhelming other plants.

This is Common Centaury, a widespread flower throughout Europe, and flourishing up on Sandy Ridge. Perhaps if people knew it was a kind of Gentian they might pay it more attention.

A pretty, rotting tree stump always will have me reaching for my camera! And even more so if it's backed by wispy dried grasses.

Down near the old quarry the bracken is backlit by the sun just appearing over the crest. But you'd probably like to see some birds....

So here's an Avocet, easily recognised by its upturned bill.

And there's a monstrous owl lurking among the trees!

In a month or two all the bracken will be turning gold. Maybe I'll return to take some more pictures then....or maybe I'll forget like I usually do!

Before then all the heathers will be blooming (though we might go somewhere else to see that spectacle).

But right now we can enjoy the butterflies like this colourful Peacock.

It's starting to warm up and more people are out and about on the trails, so we'll head back to the car park. It's been a pleasant way to spend the morning.

Take care.

Jewels And Treasures

Recently it's been what English people call "hot", but I've managed a few short walks and found some of nature's smaller wonders, none that are rare or unusual at this time of year, but all of which pleased me greatly.

A Large Skipper butterfly,

the sort of tiny thing that I often see as it flits across the path,

but seldom stop to look at.

Ragwort

a plant which has a bad reputation as it's said to be poisonous to horses.

However it's a food source for many insects.

A Common Blue Damselfly.

Very common indeed around some of our ponds in July.

But how can all the necessities for life be packed

into such a slender form?

The Red-Eyed Damselfly may be even smaller.

At the side of the water

a young Moorhen waits for its mother to return.

I was hoping it would step on to drier ground where we could see its enormous feet:

they always look like children who have put on their father's boots!

These are the flowers of Traveller's Joy or Clematis vitalba,

also known as Old Man's Beard from its hairy white seed-heads.

Another name is Boy's Bacca because the dry stems can be smoked 

(other harmful substances are available).

A Comma butterfly.

A Ruddy Darter dragonfly.

Young Swallows have fledged but still wait for their parents to feed them.

They'll have to learn quickly, as they'll be flying off to Africa in a couple of months.

Another quick snap then I'll leave them to it.

White butterflies are everywhere

This is a Green-Veined White.

Banded Demoiselles are also abundant

alongside the stream.

There's another one!

Take care.