birds, badgers and a blot on the landscape?

Did a volunteer ranger patrol yesterday in the parish of Staintondale. The birds were swallows and swifts, screaming and whirling in the gale over the cliffs whilst I walked a section of the Cleveland Way. For more details see:-

http://www.northyorkmoors.org.uk/cleveland-way-national-trail/

I didn't see any badgers, but some huge setts on the outskirts of Ravenscar. I belong to the Badger Trust, so it's good to see evidence of a local badger population.
 http://www.badgertrust.org.uk/content/news.asp 

The blot on the landscape, well views differ, this is it. It's a WW2 coastguard lookout, now an Ancient Monument. The board and seat next to it, celebrate amongst other things early radar and the North Sea Trail, http://www.northseatrail.org/index.php/en/about_the_north_sea_trail



The board is a curious mixture of WW2 history and talk of the common heritage of the countries round the North Sea, reminds me of the song by either Dylan or Baez, 'we fought the Germans and now they're our friends'; not to mention all the other invaders (who then settled here) from the North Sea. Perhaps one day we'll have a trail that celebrates all the other settlers to this country, a world wide trail, I can dream. My mother's family, probably of Viking heritage; my father's, they came here over 80 years ago from West Bengal.



A section of the board





The seat, with my best friends, my walking poles.

Time for a snack above Hayburn Wyke

At Hayburn Wyke the sun came out, I turned and walked back on field paths and the old railway line, the story of that is for another day.

                                     

The moral of today's blog, walking on your own gives you chance to think, this is usually good. So was the coffee and lemon drizzle cake at the Tea Rooms in Ravenscar.