Brenda Road Green Space by Alistair McLee

It lies to the west of the rail track running through Seaton Carew and East of said Brenda Road . The area is largely grassland on old calcareous slag heaps from the days of blast furnace iron making. Also there is some wetland, naturally generating scrub, heavily grazed pony pasture and planted woodland containing every conceivable species of British tree species and some that are not. However, anyone who birdwatches in our county, should know better than to disregard an area, simply because it is not pretty, or because it does not conform to some defined vegetation habitat. If this area has a fault, it is too close to, and inland from, established good birding areas to its East. Percentage birding encourages visits to the North Gare, the dunes, golf course and Seaton Common itself. BRGS is too easy to ignore.

The surveying exercise of breeding birds 17 years ago, when data was being gathered for the club’s publication “ The Breeding Birds of Cleveland”, turned up all the usual suspects. I believe that a study of wintering birds would be little different from what could be expected on sites east of Seaton Carew. However species like Merlin and Short Eared Owl periodically vanish from their local haunts and this site could well be an alternative. Fodder set out for ponies attracts wintering finches, buntings and larks. I have reports of snipe in the wet areas and I found Sedge Warbler whilst taking photographs and on a better day Lesser White Throat could have been easily found by any who knows the song.

Access is best from the south side from Seaton Lane, heading West, immediately after the rail bridge. Follow the path through the restricting gate and before you are a variety of paths to wander at will. Please forward your records to the club as I suspect this site will be an option in the future for a wind turbine and a case would have to be made for objections to any planning application.