20th February 2010 2009

With my family, I spent the half-term week in a cottage in Whitby, right next to the river and close to the centre of the town.

As soon as we arrived, I spotted two male eider ducks on the river. These two ducks moved out onto the sea the next day but joined a group of about eight eiders which spent the rest of the week just outside the harbour.

Also in the river, and easily visible from the window of our cottage, was a seal. The seal was present on the evening of our arrival and the following morning but I think that dredging work deterred it for the rest of the week.

For my daughter Eleanor and I, our fossil-hunting trips were highlights of the week. We joined a guided walk, led by Byron Blessed of the Natural Wonders shop in Whitby, and saw dinosaur footprints. Also, Eleanor managed to pick up an ammonite which is quite rare in the area - Frechiella subcarinata.

For me, the most pleasing find, earlier in the week, was of a piece of sandstone which carries a rather fragile fossil of a Gingko leaf. It is only a week or two since I was showing a group of young pupils  the Gingko which grows in Great Garden at Ackworth and was explaining to them that the leaves of Gingko are known from the fossil records.

Whilst scanning the sea from the view-point at the end of Henrietta Street late one afternoon, I spotted a harbour porpoise. I wasn’t the only one to see it because I also noticed the people on board a tourist boat pointing at it. The porpoise surfaced a few times before I lost sight of it.

Next journal entry.

Previous journal entry.