It’s a strange feeling being higher than a helicopter but that’s just what happened walking home today across the Firehills. Coastguard helicopter, Rescue 163 seen here on exercise at low tide a little east of the Lee Ness ledge.
I have added another postcard to the Lovers’ Seat page and also to the 1909 footpath map as it just shows the barn on the skyline that is no longer there. Other items to be included on the map soon include the footbridge at the bottom of Ecclesbourne Glen and a second tea hut in Fairlight Glen once I am sure of their locations.
Walking round the top of Fairlight Glen today I had my first and most probably, the first sighting of a completely white albino grey squirrel. Whilst there have been I believe more than one in Alexandra Park I have never heard of one being seen at the Country Park before. Now all I have to do is get a photo! Walking between Warren Cottage and Barley Lane I saw a flock of 100+ goldfinch and 150+ jackdaws going from Barley Lane down to Fairlight Glen.
Yes I do mean beech not beach! Those of you familiar with Fairlight Glen can no have failed to spot the magnificent beech tree that appears to be growing literally out of the rock. It seems to have taken a right pasting in last night’s storm but is still hanging on there stoically.
There are a number of branches and small trees down in Warren and Fairlight Glens but are all negotiable.
The Charlie Rock barge along with it’s tug Afon Goch came back today with one more load of Larvikite to finish off the Fairlight berm
This barge load should be enough to finish the job and I have been told that tomorrow there will be a load dropped off at Hastings Pier. I also got a better video than last time. Watch the Cat loader closely and you will just how much lifting power it has as it picks its back wheels up right off the deck!
Well, yesterday was the only day for the Country Park in the list of six that HBC have been promoting recently on Facebook. There was just two of us that attended, hardly surprising from our existing group considering the 4 month gap and the lack of response by HBC to email enquiries that I have been told about but the flood of new volunteers that we were promised from using social media to promote volunteering has not materialised. I am told that currently there are no further dates in the pipeline for any of the sites in the Borough and given that I believe three of the days were cancelled due to various reasons and a low turn out for most of the others, I would not be surprised if no more dates were forthcoming. From a management point of view it must be difficult to justify tying up a ranger for the best part of a day for such small numbers of volunteers.
The final stage of the coastal protection berm at Fairlight Cove started recently. A large barge the Stema Barge II is moored offshore that is stated to be capable of carrying 21,000 tonnes of Larvikite an igneous rock similar to granite that comes from Norway.
Having checked the tides I made my way up to the cliff path east of the village to watch the smaller barge the Charlie Rock towed by the Afon Goch come in and was surprised to see some sort of landing craft leaving the beach having dropped off a dump truck. I had assumed that the heavy plant that was on the beach at Pett Level would be tracked round at low tide, so I rushed round to Cliff Way to have a better view when it returned with it’s next load.
Here comes dump truck no 2
The landing craft is called Severn Sins from the port of Bideford and a little research has revealed that it is a LCU (landing craft utility) Mk9 which were carried by the Amphibious Assault Vessels (4 each) HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid (not the Invincible as previously stated here, many thanks to Pete who served on the Fearless for correcting that) that saw action in the Falklands.
The last load. Some of the freshly unloaded rock can be seen just left of the excavator boom
It seems that the Stema Barge II will be empty tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how many loads it takes to complete the works.
Short video of the Charlie Rock barge unloading, shame about the sound, it was windy!
Last Thursday we went a little “off piste” and paid a visit to Pett Level. Andy who has been studying such things kindly offered to take us on a fossil hunt at Cliff End. he introduced us to the bone bed which looks more like concrete than a place where fossils may be lurking.
San spotted this which we think is a dinosaur footprint that has been well worn by the tides.
Off topic, but I had to take a photo of this Greater Birds-foot Trefoil just growing out of the cliff.
We finished off with a wander round Toot Rock, an interesting piece of second world war history.
Have added a new page to the site, Historical Maps, with the first one being an interactive Google map showing footpaths as on Ordnance Survey mapping from 1909 and some features that have been lost to the Country Park but are shown on the map. More to come in time.
We were blessed with excellent weather today for our Fairlight Glen walk. The route started round the top where we stopped to admire the tenacity of the beech tree literally growing out of the rock and the Ordnance Survey bench mark in the rock, a bit of “official graffiti” along with the inevitable names. We then took the ghyll stream path up to the dripping well taking in the unique vegetation on the way, then it was up the steps and down again to take the path through Longshore Wood and up Smugglers Steps. Thence on to Barn Pond and in the hedge on the way, Sam our invertebrate spotter found us this Longhorn Beetle which my book has as Strangalia maculata but it seems to have changed to Rutpela maculata, hence the title and also an immature male Broad Bodied Chaser.
At Barn Pond we were treated to Broad Bodied Chasers, Emperor Dragonflies and Linnet taking advantage of the Parrot’s Feather to have a drink in the middle of the pond. We also saw a few grass vetchling in flower where I saw many last year. Still not a great day for butterflies only Meadow Brown and Small/Essex Skipper.
Hastings Country Park N R CONSERVATION GROUP 