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Foreshore Road is a long, level curve, following the
contour of the South Bay. It's an easy stroll, with plenty more interesting
wildlife to enjoy.
The South bay area is a good place to spot bird-life
with Mediterranean gulls now becoming quite common.
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| In effortless flight |
In winter vagrant birds like Glaucus gull and Iceland
gull, and different kinds of waders like Curlew, Oyster catcher, Dunlin
and Turnstone might be spotted.
There have even been two sitings of Ross's Gulls in Scarborough,
a bird from the far east of Europe, not expected to venture this far west.
Occasionally if the wind is blowing onto the land you'll
see birds like Littleauk, which look a little like penguins only a few
centimetres high.
In the bay itself, keep your eyes peeled for a sight
of a grey seal, or perhaps even a dolphin offshore. The harbour still
acts as a focal point for debris, so the marine mammals take advantage
of it as an easy source of food.
In the past, whales and Basking Sharks (the second largest
fish in the sea) have swum into the South Bay waters, in search of plankton
drifting inshore. However don't be alarmed at the mention of Sharks. The
Basking Shark is harmless, unless you're plankton.
From a small sheltered fishing port, to a wealthy medieval
town with a significant ship building industry, throughout it's history
Scarborough has been redefined several times.
But it was the industrial revolution that defined the
most recent transformation into a bustling holiday resort.
At about the same time the ship building businesses died
out, then with the advent of railway transport, for the first time it
was possible for the masses to enjoy what had previously been reserved
for only the very rich... a holiday.
So Scarborough's second front was created. The loud,
flashy seafront we all love or hate. But it can't mask the importance
of Scarborough's first front. It's position as a frontier area where vagrant
species land and find out if they'd like to settle in Britain.
Whether these vagrants are plant, bird, animal or fish,
they make an investigative walk markedly more rewarding than it would
be in a more stable environment.
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