Coast and Castles - July 2025 - Northumberland

Cambois

Blyth dawned grey and miserable, I can't say I was surprised. However better things lay in store, the forecast suggesting that by 9am it would be a lot nicer. We headed for breakfast in a happier mood. Breakfast is the one meal where I don't mind the use of oil and deep-frying, and so we settled down to a stupidly large and calorific feast to set ourselves up for the day. I birded out of the window whilst supping on coffee, the usual suspects for the most part but I was surprised by a small fleet of Goosander in the channel. My Northumberland list is streets ahead of Tyne and Wear mainly due to it being somewhere I've actually stopped at on the way to and from Fife. There was the Bridled Tern twitch on the Farnes in about 2013, and then the Grey-headed Lapwing near High Newton much more recently, but mainly it appears I just dropped in as I passed if there was something worth stopping for. So I've got a record of a Great Reed Warbler from East Chevington in 2021 for instance, and then Pacific Golden Plover at Boulmer and a White-winged Black Tern from Druridge Bay on the same day in 2020. Along with all the incidentals that meant I started the day on 65 yet Goosander and Magpie were both new.

It was going to be an exciting day, I was going to meet my blog reader. Many people as they age become more and more antisocial, less tolerant of everyone and everything. Maybe that is a gross generalisation but I feel there's some truth there. In my case the opposite seems to be happening, and as I age the more I gregarious I seem to be becoming. All relative of course, I am still a grumpy old so-and-so. Lockdown was the catalyst. After spending so long in different periods of relative isolation, when it was finally over I through caution to the wind and made a real effort to leave my four walls, meet new people and cultivate new friendships. Generally this was through shared passions, chiefly wine. These other people felt the same way and so versus a few years ago I now have a fairly wide network of friends and aquaintances in London and beyond, extending to a lot of the south-east and even as far as Edinburgh. The same is true of birding in Fife - despite having visited there for years it is only in recent times that I've made a deliberate effort to speak to other birders up there, and have joined the Fife Bird Club and their various WhatsApp groups. I cannot really explain it other than by that period of enforced nuclear family solitude.

So before I left London I used Social Media (gah!) to get in touch with Alan who I knew lived somewhere along our route. Alan is a fellow birder, and is one of those people who I felt that I really should have met many years ago, yet at the same time I felt as if I already had. It's curious. Anyway, would he like to meet for morning coffee in his neck of the woods as we passed? He could have ignored my message but good soul that he is he did not! I think he felt much the same as I did. A time and date were set, and it was later this morning.

The Blyth Estuary

The weather did indeed start to clear up, and as we cycled along the Blyth Estuary and out towards Cambois the joy in what we were doing really began to set in. Fresh air, it was warm, there was a modicum of sun, there were no people (go figure!) and the views were fantastic. Remember for a moment what I spend most of my life gazing out at: concrete. The first Swallows appeared at Cambois as we cycled between the village and the sea, chattering overhead. As the journey went on, along with House Martin, Linnet and Goldfinch, their calls became our constant companions. 

We met Alan and Suzanne at the Drift Café just outside Cresswell mid morning. It was great to finally put a face to the name. We have known of each other for many years, brought together back in the days when blogging was actually popular and people actually read them, before micro-attention spans became the norm. His own, like so many, has fallen by the wayside, but like me he continues to follow those few that soldier on. He wondered how I managed to continue to write, a topic I've covered here before, the answer being that it is as much for myself as for anyone else. Perhaps chiefly for my own benefit in fact, which is probably a good thing when you look at the stats. Mrs L joked that I should start all future posts with "Dear Alan", and I may yet do so. We had a good old natter about birding, birds, Fife, Northumberland, London, people, work, writing, travel, cycling, America, childen, and probably a few other things too. And of course it all felt completely natural - I'll try and keep in touch. Thanks for the tea!

We carried on north, past Chibburn Links, East Chevington and Low Hauxley before gliding into Amble for lunch. We shared fish and chips from the Harbour Fish Bar and very nice it was too. I would have ordered a large one but that was an extra seven minutes wait so I settled for medium. It was a like a battered Humpback Whale on an Ayer's Rock of chips, God only knows how big a large one would have been, and we couldn't finish it. Fish and chips is something that I very occasionally have a real hankering for, as was the case now, but once I get through about half of it I don't want to see or think about fish and chips again for several months. That's me done for 2025 I reckon. We ate it down by the RNLI station and looked at the harbour one way and Warkworth Castle the other. This is the life.

A quick stop to look for small Curlews

Amble

Carrying on we went past the castle. I saw some Shelduck and heard a Kingfisher on the River Coquet here. Eventually we reached Alnmouth and Boulmer, and at Longhoughton Steel (where the PGP had been) we stopped for some tea from our flasks and felt very middle aged. I had wanted to spend more time scanning the shore here but it wasn't long before the haar rolled in and we were in the mist. Onwards then, along an unpaved track to Howick Burn. It was about here that I questioned why we hadn't heard Yellowhammer yet, and right on cue two appeared and from then on their song never left us. A Rock Pipit was on the beach.

Billy has the Farnes all sewn up

Seahouses

Embleton followed by our final destination for the day, Seahouses. It was packed with day-trippers and holiday makers, lots of people coming off Farne Island boats. Hopefully they saw some Puffins this late in the season and got pecked on the head by Arctic Terns. We had done fully 50 miles today and I was feeling all of them, but at least we were dry. We sorted ourselves out at the B&B down the road, had a nice walk along the harbour, and then went for dinner. Pizza, another north-east classic.

Starlings at Seahouses

Geeb

A flight of Whimbrel

Inner Farne

The following morning we set off for Eyemouth. First up Bamburgh Castle, slightly west of which I was forced to stop for a singing Grasshopper Warbler. Constant stopping upon hearing or seeing something was a regular feature of this trip and resulted in over 80 individual eBird checklists being submitted. The only Mistle Thrush of the trip were near here and I stopped for those too. And for a Spotted Flyctacher near Kettleburn Farm... If this drove Mrs L to distraction for the most part she was very forgiving, stopping a short while later when she realised I was no longer behind her. Mind you this was only day two, and by day five I detected more of a frisson in the air, more angst, and an increased desire to move me along.

Bamburgh Castle

Goswick

Cocklawburn (I think)

Er, the North Sea

We crossed the A1 shortly after this and were faced with a killer hiller into Belford. I got off and pushed, everyone has a breaking point. We then tracked inland with wonderful views of The Farnes, Bamburgh and Lindisfarne. This is probably the section that gives rise to the "Coast and Castles" moniker, but for such a famous stretch parts of the route weren't much to write home about. At one stage we had to cycle through a field, albeit a good birdy field, and then the very final stretch into Berwick was rather lumpy. Lovely views but I really wanted a nice paved bit as I had to spend a lot of the time looking at what my front wheel was about to hit rather than taking in the wonderful scenery. I am probably wrong but I wondered if there was a "get orf my land" recalcitrant farmer along here somewhere. We had a late lunch in Berwick looking out over the estuary with views of Mute Swans and Goosanders, and after that climbed another seemingly endless hill from the A1 before we crossed into Scotland. Which is where this post ends. I would later discover that I had taken my Northumberland list from 65 to 96 simply by going on a long bike ride. Nice.

Berwick-upon-Tweed