British Dinosaur finds:

not by me, sadly. Dorset rather cheekily calls itself the Jurassic Coast, as though there are no other fossil-rich Jurassic coastal exposures in Britain. However, Dcrset inspired Mary Anning and most recently David Sole, a solicitor whose discovery of a Scelidosaurus is reported in the Daily Telegraph today. This is the second news of a big find that reached my lugs this week: the (also) Jurassic shale at Sandsend (3 miles north of Whitby, 6 south of Runswick Bay) has given up a big skull of a crocodile, and there are more bones to be had. The finder is being very cagey: not relating the exact location, although given that he cut the block out with a petrol disc-cutter it shouldn't be too hard to find.

I got this second hand, and asked it to be passed back to the finder that an expert eye should be brought in for quarrying the rest of the animal out: what surrounds and is mixed in with the bones may be of scientific interest, too.

Apologies for the radio silence

but that will be rectified in the morning after a walk on the cliffs, beach or disused railway track as the fit and weather takes me. Fossil, flustra or flora, there will be something new here tomorrow.

Welcome to Runswick Bay

to visitors from this Beagle Project blog post. Hope you enjoy your visit to this rather lovely North Yorkshire bay. Please have a peruse of the natural and pre-history I've managed to record so far. Above: the bay and Kettleness headland under a full moon. Kettleness is an old alum quarrying site which provided the Natural History Museum in London with one of its fine jurassic pliosaur specimens. We have a rare fish discovery, an unidentified jurassic fossil and a similarly unidentified pink blob hanging from a rock should anyone have a minute to spare. And make sure to go and visit my British Natural History blog-colleagues. Another pic of the place in its Sunday best:

Neighbouring rocks,

very different communities on them:
The reddish sandstones seem to offer a better substrate for seaweed and encrusting algae to get established..
The grey rocks (I'm taking geology for idiots to the beach from now on) are bare of algae and seaweed (enough of an algae film must grow to allow the limpets to make a living) and just home to limpets and barnacles.

I love blogs...(jurassic bivalve mollusc fossil edition)

Years ago an adult - a teacher no less - plucked one of these from a jurassic shale cliff, showed it to me and in adult, pedagogical tones that left no room for doubt informed me it was a brachiopod. He knew stuff. I believed him, and I have gone through 30 years telling other cruelly misguided youngsters the same.

Now Neil, in a comment on this post, enlists the eye of someone who really knows their beans on this. It's not a brachiopod, we probably have a bivalve mollusc.

Excellent (1): lesson learned - don't take other people's word for it, take the field guide, check for yourself.

Excellent (2): there are people like Neil, who (look at his blog, this chap knows his stuff) will take an interest, get an expert opinion and put me right in a manner that doesn't make me feel thick as the proverbial two short planks, for which many thanks. I'm writing a field guide for kids and doing guided beach walks this summer, and his comment has saved me from making an ass of myself in print and in public. Ta Neil, and if your friend has a moment, this popped out of the cliff today a lovely fat 3 dimensional bivalve, 50mm x 30....
And from behind...

I love birds

but can't photograph them worth a damn, fortunately Whitby Birding can, and he pays occasional visits to Runswick Bay, where he recently caught a Black Redstart.

High water 23 April, 5.0 metre tide.

Let's compare the difference between this and a neap high tide in a week.

The bay today.

Un ID-d plant (updated).

Someone has 'borrowed' my wildflower field guide, so any help appreciated. It's pretty hardy - it's on the rock breakwater, and the next plant of any sort in a seawardly direction (about 10 metres away) is splash-zone seaweed. Thanks to all tree who have told me it's a wallflower. I always through walls flowers would be more dowdy than this.

April 23, St George's Day

Time to make a respectful bow to the daddy of English naturalists, Gilbert White who recorded his observations in The Natural History of Selborne, the inspiration for this blog. Here are the St George's Day entries from his journals:

• 1793: April 23, 1793 – Mowed the terrace. Cut the first cucumber. Pulled the first radishes. A swallow over my meadow.
• 1792: April 23, 1792 – A nest of young blackbirds destroyed by a cat in my garden.
• 1789: April 23, 1789 – Swallows & martins do not yet frequent houses. Women hoe wheat.
• 1788: April 23, 1788 – Gave away 24 eggs of my Bantham kind among my neighbours.
• 1787: April 23, 1787 – Cuckow sings on the hill. Nightingale sings in my outlet.
• 1786: April 23, 1786 – Grass lamb. Timothy, if you offer him some poppy leaves, will eat a little; but does not seek for food.
• 1784: April 23, 1784 – Timothy the tortoise comes forth from his winter-retreat.
• 1783: April 23, 1783 – No hirudines.
• 1779: April 23, 1779 – The caterpillars of some phalaenae attack the foliage of the apricots again.
• 1775: April 23, 1775 – Swallows abound; but no house-martin, or black-cap. No swift.

Now bookmark the site A Natural History of Selborne and visit regularly.

How did I survive so long without finding

the UK Natural History Bloggers? Go visit. And welcome to the visitor from Ukraine: I hope you liked the Bay and found all you needed about Inoceramus.

Hawthorn in blossom 13 April 2008 (updated)

According to the BBC, hawthorn is blossoming ever earlier, a sign of the seasons shifting. Hawthorn used to be called Mayflower, but according to a gentleman in this report, it is being seen in flower at the end of April. Plenty in flower in mid-April here in Runswick Bay.

Update: Public service science announcement from a botanist in comments.

Apologies to my naturalising colleagues

at East Barnby Outdoor Education Centre for thinking I'm the only one doing science on this here beach. They were canoing in Runswick Bay yesterday (sea temp six centigrade), and talking to one of their instructors it turns out their in-house field biologist brings groups of sixth formers to the beach for rockpooling, fossil and geology field studies. He is particularly interested in how climate change is affecting certain species on the shore.

My cousin, a teacher, took her class on an adventure day with East Barnby and can't recommend them highly enough.

Runswick Bay cliff erosion

April 2008:
January 2008: