skip to main content
The busy month of February
​Well, what a busy month we have had at Coast Care! It’s amazing what you can get done with an awesome bunch of volunteers, and some great collaboration between organisations.

We rounded off January with our first volunteer led guided walk which was a great success. Volunteer Peter Slater did a walk around Cocklawburn using his knowledge gained from volunteering on the Peregrine project as well as his own research. Peter was very organized and told some amazing facts about the local area, from the 320 million years ago up until the Second World War! We hope to host more guided walks, so please get in touch if you would enjoy sharing your knowledge of our wonderful coastline.

February started off at Howdiemont on the 1st for a wet and windy beach clean that had a large amount of fine fishing line across the beach, but a dedicated group of volunteers soon got on top of it!

On the 3rd we had Capturing Our Coast staff up for the day from Newcastle University to train us on rocky shore data collection. The training was a full day and involved practical sessions performing surveys as well as in-depth species identification and theoretical methodology. It was great to work with the Capturing Our Coast team and they will hopefully run another session later in the year. For more information go to https://www.capturingourcoast.co.uk/

On the 7th our first round of Barn Owl boxes were made. The materials were purchased through the sale of plastic carrier bags at Bamburgh Castle. Charging for the bags has reduced how many are used and the sales contribute to the Northumberland Barn Owl project. Volunteers Dave Rogers and John Parkin did a great job getting the boxes started alongside Barn Owl expert, Phil Hamner. Soon we will be painting them and putting them out for the birds to use.

John Grundy from Durham wildlife’s Revealing Reptiles project joined us on the 9th to discuss the status of Reptiles in Northumberland and how we can report sightings, as well as making suitable habitats for our local reptiles. He is incredibly passionate and knowledgeable and this was a great opportunity to learn more. For further information go to https://durhamwt.com/project/revealing-reptiles/

On the 15th, Coast Care teamed up with volunteers from Natural England to perform a beach clean at Cheswick and Cocklawburn beaches. A team of 16 people, armed with bags and litter pickers set along the beach but were unprepared for what they found. Volunteers worked for nearly 2 hours cutting through huge piles of lobster pots, rope, hauling tires, gas canisters, 50kg of dog poo (!) and so much more off the beach! Hopefully we won’t come across that amount of rubbish again any time soon. Well done and a huge thank you to all involved!

Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service have a 12 week Prince’s Trust Programme for 16-25 year olds to help them gain work experience, practical skills and nationally recognised qualifications to help with their future career. I was lucky enough to join them on the 19th to start off their community work. They had an introduction to beach cleans and why it is so important to our coastline as well as the differences they could make in their own lives to reduce plastics etc. What a great group, I’m sure they will make excellent employees in the future! For more information go to http://www.northumberland.gov.uk/Fire/Young.aspx

We held another Site warden training session on the 26th, our site wardens are a vital part of Coast Care. We can’t be everywhere at once, as much as we would like to be so having individuals dotted up and down the coast doing small beach cleans and reporting any problems is amazing. Some of our site wardens monitor their beach every day. It is important they have training so they know what to look for and how to stay safe along the coast.

We have another busy month ahead with lots of volunteer activities planned as well as the arrival of our new Coast Care Coordinator, Gary Campbell. Welcome to the team Gary! I am sure you will be hearing from him very soon… 

"I met some wonderful people and really felt that my work helped make a difference to my local area."

Why Volunteer →
Top