Dead souls

I've just returned from a couple of weeks away. It wasn't the longed planned and much needed trip to south central France that had been booked for months. Covid and our government's inability to develop a proper track and trace system put pay to those dreams. We ended up spending a fortnight in East Yorkshire, visiting family, the coast, and parts of North Yorkshire. The weather was much cooler and rather mixed in terms of rain, however, it was pretty enjoyable and we got to see a fair amount of countryside and I even managed a bit of natural history.

One of the days was spent visiting one of my favourite child hood haunts, Spurn Point.

Despite it still being mid August, the weather made it feel like early Autumn. There used to be a continuous effort to stem the natural coastal processes that make this area so dynamic. About 10 years ago this was scaled back after a storm surge broke through the middle of the peninsula and took out the road. 

There are the remains of the many attempts to stabilise the coastline still evident all along the point, including the ghosts of old groynes, that on a grey and chilly day give the perfect impression of decay and loss. There's always a feeling of stepping back in time when I visit Spurn and this time that feeling was even stronger.

There used to be a thriving medieval town on the point called Ravenser Odd. In the 13th century it was a more important port than nearby Hull, but as the coastline shifted due to longshore drift, the town was swept away. In the winter of 1356–57 storms completely flooded the town, leading to its abandonment, and in 1362 it was largely destroyed by Saint Marcellus's flood aka the Grote Mandrenke storm, which was also responsible for the major destruction of the town of Dunwich in Suffolk.

It transpires that Ravenser Odd was just one of several 'lost towns' along the Humber. There's a book called The Lost Towns of the Yorkshire Coast which was printed in the early 20th century which goes into a huge amount of detail about all this history. There's a digitised version available here.
 

The British Library - Image taken from The Lost Towns of the Humber

Anyway, back to the natural history. There were a few beetles about. I came across several Silpha tristis in the dunes. It's only the second time I've seen this species, the other occasion being in Dorset about four years ago.

I also swept an Ophonus from a wild carrot seed head. It was an Ophonus ardosiacus, a species I commonly get in the late summer moth traps but this is only the second time I've found it by other means and it appears to be about the northern limit of their distribution.

The common bug Adelphocoris lineolatus was new for me, probably because I've only recently started paying hemipterids more attention. It was even relatively easy to identify too.

I also managed a plant tick in the form of Spiny Saltwort. I'm sure I've seen this before but don't appear to have recorded it and it's not in my (admittedly) poorly put together plant spreadsheet!

It was a thoroughly delightful few hours mooching about and taking in the sense of 'other worldliness' that a visit to Spurn always brings. As the tides shifted and the waves came in, you could almost the sense the ghosts of those lost places.