A brisk walk along the Tyne to the coast began as penance for an overindulgent birthday lunch of North Shields’ finest fish, chips and mushy peas. Wavelets on the river, ruffled by a breeze, sparkled in the afternoon sunshine. A returning fishing boat, trailing gulls like confetti, crossed paths with the Port of Tyne pilot vessel heading seaward to shepherd an inbound merchant ship past the treacherous Black Middens reef.
A magnificent coastal panorama beckoned from the lighthouse at the end of Tynemouth north pier, but we had also come to see the kittiwakes that nest at Tynemouth Haven, on sandstone cliffs below the ruined priory. There are reckoned to be about 350 pairs in the colony, easily viewed from a platform at the pier’s entrance.
