I’ve been spending most time lately either right up in north west Northumberland and the borders, on the coast, but also in Newcastle looking at nature and wildness in the midst of the city and its green and blue spaces. So, I thought this time I’d focus on the Tyne in its lower reaches, between the city and the estuary and how that relates to further afield.
The Tyne is, like all rivers, a living artery (polluted as most are to degrees, but still lifelines) and nowhere is this more the case than in the urban and partly industrial Tyne – a river actually much cleaner and therefore biodiverse than it has been in its heyday of its heavy industrial past. It’s been through the changes that have been thrust upon it, and has somehow come out of it ok. The Tyne would have been an amazing wetland system in prehistoric times, as whole wild catchment of, and even in the days of Thomas Bewick at Cherryburn, as agricultural revolution turned to industrial, the famous engraver was able to log great abundance and diversity of life along its reaches, most of which has been lost.
But there is still much to enchant and celebrate about the Tyne today; from its kittiwake colony in the city centre, to its pretty-well resident school of dolphins at Tynemouth, and much in between to entertain the modern-day naturalist.
In fact, it’s a very green city and has many local waterways and tributaries also full of potential and actual life still, the Ouseburn being a good example.
In the last weeks I’ve been involved in looking at potential new projects and we already have 9 wildlife and people related programmes we at NWT call our Wild City team. It’s very inspiring to hear the staff delivering these and the enthusiasm and excitement they get from people and communities about the wildlife and nature on their doorstep. This nature connection is crucial to future restoration of nature and climate. We have projects on community forestry, schools and families, pollinator corridors, you name it!
This means I’ve also had time to look at what there is about down the urban Tyne. It is a revelation and incredibly impressive as a whole. No other city has a kittiwake colony of this scale so far inland. Thousands of them nesting on the bridge and elsewhere, interrupting the bridge repainting, causing a mess and a fuss sometimes, with their choice of nest site and their guano, their incessant, to me beautiful, ‘ke-wake’ calls. I think it’s very cool we have these seafarers nesting here, and I know through the work of the Tyne Kittiwake Partnership, most if not every potential problem is solvable, if the humans behave properly.
Below them we also see seals and seabirds like cormorants and more near the Baltic. At the mouth and further up the Ouseburn our wildlife cameras show there are otters frequenting what I have to say are not the cleanest of waters. Salmon and sea trout still migrate up the Tyne, visible in September at Hexham bridge and other places, what a privilege to see them. Even the high-level bridge is a nesting site for the formidable peregrine, and I’ve watched one recently stooping and circling, from a traffic queue on the Tyne bridge.
The wilder it is the wilder the life, so as we approach the mouth or estuary of the Tyne at Tynemouth it gets very wild indeed, as the Tyne blends with the North Sea. From here there are daily reports of bottle nosed dolphins, having come down from Scotland following herring. The turbulent waters of the Tyne here are ecologically productive and there are often migratory and other fish fare for the dolphin, common and grey seals, fresh from their breeding and hauling out grounds at St. Mary’s Island, near the very wild place of Whitley Bay.
This is also a brilliant headland for migrant birds, with recent beauties I missed including Bluethroat and Wryneck, a bird that actually bred on Tyneside in the 18th Century and was engraved in history by Thomas Bewick.
Despite being a great city, with all that brings, not least loads of people, the wildlife, the green bits and blue bits, or brown waters, of the Tyne, make it still a truly living waterway. It is also a city that is easy to get out of, with deep countryside accessible in a short journey back up the Tyne’s valley. The city and the Tyne are human and wildlife hubs, connected to the whole ecologies of Northumbria and will always be a wonderful mix of both.