Thoughts from a hide

Some years ago, we visited the Galapagos islands where the variation in beak sizes among the finches was a factor in Darwin's conclusion that they were all descended from a common ancestor and had developed to take advantage of the different food sources available. This led to his great work On the Origin of Species.

Castle on Lindisfarne

We have our own little Galapagos islands off the Northumbrian coast where the terns, puffins and seals breed in safety. On a recent trip to watch the wintering birds,the Brent geese, ducks and waders, it struck me that Darwin could have arrived at the same conclusion on the muddy shoreline of Lindisfarne.

Watching the waders probing the ground for food, each has a bill beautifully adapted for its particular needs, for the depth at which its prey lives and the type of terrain. The sandpiper family ranges from the turnstone with its short strong beak for flipping over stones on the beach to find food beneath to the long bills of the curlews and godwits with their sensitive tips probing soft mud for worms and invertebrates.

Turnstones

All obviously derive from an original wading bird and, further back, there was probably a common predecessor with the stilts, plovers and oystercatchers.

They are monophyletic, all coming from the same distant ancestor bird that picked up scraps from the ground after it had evolved from an even more remote reptilian creature. 

Surf coming in on the shore with Bamburgh Castle in the background

 

Did Darwin have to sail to the other side of the world to see what was under his and everyone else's nose? The voyage probably just clarified what he had been thinking about prior to his trip but would it have received the same acclaim if he just popped along to his nearest seashore or just observed our native finches from hawfinch to crossbill?

 P.S. On the day I was watching the Brent geese on Lindisfarne, another much more experienced and better equipped observer was doing the same and apparently spotted the tag on a goose that showed it was 23+ years old and had flown 100,000 miles in annual migrations !

  https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/holy-island-s-old-goose-has-flown-total-of-100-000-miles-9gz0mqj3k?shareToken=af6d44ac5726642cc2111dd04e51ddc8 

St Cuthbert's Way Part VI

Wooler to Fenwick, the penultimate lap. It had to be easier than the last. Only eleven or so miles. It started with a pleasant stroll by the Wooler Water but soon it was climbing again up on to Weetwood Moor. This must have been a place of significance in Neolithic times with its boulder strewn heather slopes and its enigmatic cup and ring carvings. A gathering place... perhaps, a place of ritual or social functions. 

The piles of stones bear witness to previous structures long since gone, their components recycled into walls and sheep-folds.

http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/weetwood3.htm 

As Macdiarmid says " There are plenty of ruined buildings in the world but no ruined stones"

The stones survive.

Coming down from the moor, I crossed the Till, the only English tributary of the Tweed, at the Weetwood bridge and climbed steadily past the Hortons - West and East, to cross the Devil's Causeway, part of another old Roman road to Hazelrigg.
Looking back, Wooler could be seen nestling in the Cheviots.

 From here the Way follows the contours of the last ridge before the coast, then ascends to St Cuthbert's cave.

An arresting sight, the overhang where it is said, the monks rested with the saint's body as they fled from the Norse raiders at Lindisfarne. The cave is disfigured by centuries of graffiti gouged into the soft sandstone but is still a place to stir the imagination.

Two of the approach stones have vertical grooves on them, probably caused by water rivulets running down them, reminiscent of those on the "singing" Duddo stones.  On one, a horizontal crack creates a cross shape no doubt regarded as spiritually significant by pilgrims.

From the cave another climb took me to the top of the ridge and a view of my destination - Holy Island.

Holy Island with its castle

Downward into Fenwick, through the woods and picking up the signs for St Oswald's Way that goes to Hadrian's Wall, I realised that time was running out to make a connection with the bus service on the A1.

Not a squirrel in sight

 

 Hurrying along Dolly Gibson's Lonnen, surely a local version of loaning, then into the village itself, I could only manage a passing glance as I broke into a jog to get me to the bus stop. I caught it with four minutes to spare.

Only one short lap to do, the Pilgrim's Way, across the sands to Lindisfarne.