Took this one on our last night in the north east. This is Whitby Harbour from the swing bridge just as the light is fading. We all had a pizza before having a drink at a quayside pub. Believe it or not a bat flitted out into the lamp light just as I was drinking my cider. It just looked like somebody was dangling it on a string like in the old black and white Dracula movies. But it was a real bat and there was no string or dangler to be seen. We drove back to the
Raithwaite estate for the last time. During the day pheasants would often leap out of the
lane side greenery, forcing us to drive
very slow for fear of hitting one. It was quite dark by this hour. As we drove along the final bit of lane to Home Farm, Phil pointed out something crossing the road in front of us. It was a large badger going about its business. It shuffled across in front of us and trundled up a dark alley, its silvered fur disappearing into the blackness like a ghost. Just as we reached Home Farm and opened the car doors a male Tawny Owl hooted. Almost immediately another male Tawny hooted an answer to the challenge from a different angle. Debbie started hooting along with them.
"You're making them think there are loads of male intruders," I ventured.
"How do you do the female call then?" Debbie asked.
"You can't. It's too high pitched. Sort of
ewick-ewick." I made no attempt to sound like an owl.
We also revisited our old stomping ground at Sandsend. Harry loves the beach here; the smell of the sea always perks him up. He's been coming here since he was a pup. Debbie thinks the smells trigger memories for him. The ritual of chips and fish from the Magpie in Whitby serves just as well to perk up the human members of our party.
I took this shot in Whitby Harbour last week. Cormorants were diving for fish here. This gull, sitting on the boat, thinks that sounds too much like hard work.
We made our pilgrimage into Whitby town. We had been promised fine, mild weather for the week and we got it. Often there is an icy wind whipping off the North Sea into our faces but today it was as pleasant as ever a sunless October day in the North East could be. Taking advantage of the weather we went all the way along the pier walk and took some shots of the coastline.
thinned, though the gulls didn't seem to care what season it was. Fishing village = freshly caught fish = let's party. The cormorants in the harbour were happy to catch their own fish, thank you very much, and demonstrated how the real experts did it. We stopped to get a picture of one that had swum quite close but the bird dived under water before I could focus. We waited for the bird to surface but it must have come up on the 
other side of the Grand Turk.
This week we took a short break to Sandsend near Whitby, staying in a cottage on the Raithwaite estate. We've stayed in the area several times before though never in this location and never so late in the year. Previously our chosen haunt was an old converted schoolhouse, also in Sandsend but, sadly for us, recently renovated into a new hotel style complex painted so white any self respecting ghost would most likely pack up his chains and flit. This new location, stuffed to the rafters with mod cons, surely couldn't compete with the olde worlde, spook packed vibe of our schoolhouse could it? Stay tuned as things really are going to go bump in the night as we discover we aren't alone in our temporary 
new home. The mist will rise among sailors' graves, owls will hoot, bats will flutter, spectral lights will bedevil us, black cats will be shadows in the night and ghostly travelers will cross our paths in moonlight.
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