Ss SS ae PR ag 
THE AVIFAUNA OF 
STAITHES AND LOFTUS-IN-CLEVELAND, YORKSHIRE. 
KENNETH McLEAN, 
Harrogate; Joint Secretary of the Vertebrate Section of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. 
PERHAPS no more interesting district for the ornithologist can 
be found than the bit of Cleveland coast extending from Staithes 
to Skinningrove, and inland for about five miles. 
This piece of ground is cleft at the coast by two deep valleys, 
one at Staithes, the other at Skinningrove. These valleys as 
they go inland are divided and subdivided into many thickly- 
wooded gorges stretching for miles, the sides of which are in 
many places very precipitous, and along the bottom of which 
clear, sparkling streams leap over mossy rocks or ripple over 
sandy bottoms; following these streams to their sources we 
find them springing away up on the heather-clad moors of 
“re shih Waupley, and Liverton. 
Thus we have in so short a distance the beach with its 
Stretches of weed-clad rocks exposed at low tide, amongst 
which we may find hundreds of miniature lakes fringed with the 
most beautiful marine vegetation, rich feeding places for the 
Gulls, Herons, Ducks, etc., and here and there little sandy 
coves where the Sandpiper and other waders find their winter’s 
home and food. The coast cliffs, commanding and rugged, 
broken into by the huge quarries which have been worked out 
in connection with alum making, where the autumn migrants, 
exhausted with their long flight and battles with the wind and 
storms they have encountered as they crossed the wild North Sea, 
land in large quantities, where the Jackdaws, Gulls, Starlings, 
Rock Pigeons, Cormorants, Kestrels, Martins, Swifts, and many 
others have their breeding corners. 
And leading up from the coast the valleys, with sides wooded 
with oak, ash, beech, birch, larch, etc., draped with luxuriant 
undergrowth of hazel and briar, interwoven with festoons of 
ivy and honeysuckle; and underneath all a rich carpet of 
ferns, mosses, and a thousand other beautiful vegetable 
growths, and swarming with feathered inhabitants, Between 
these valleys stretch rich tracts of agricultural land abounding 
with birds belonging to the Fringilline, Sylvine, and Saxicoline 
families; and beyond these we find the moorland rising to 
May 1899. : I 
