Strategy Area Description

There are 19.5 kilometers of coastline between the Tyne's mouth just north of Littlehaven Beach, South Shields, and the southern coastal boundary of the City of Sunderland at the mouth of Ryhope Dene. The Hendon to Ryhope Dene section of the strategy area's coast is part of the Durham Heritage Coast. Along this there are a range of significant wildlife habitats, including magnesian limestone grassland, seabird cliffs, sand dunes, vegetated shingle, sandy beaches and their strandlines, and rocky shores.

The area's foreshores contain a plethora of intertidal flora and fauna in rock pools and along sandy shores, as well as in the shallow, offshore waters. These in turn attract wintering wading birds and wildfowl.

The cliffs of South Tyneside's coastline host a large mixed seabird colony, which numbers thousands of pairs of nesting seabirds - kittiwakes, fulmars, razorbills, cormorants and herring gulls. The ornithological and botanical significance of this coastline has been recognised by its inclusion in the Northumbria Coast Special Protection Area (SPA) and it is also a Ramsar site. At passage periods, particularly in the autumn, sites such as Whitburn Steel (South Tyneside), attract large numbers of roosting common, Arctic, and sandwich terns.

The coastline also performs an important function as a 'natural corridor' for wildlife, facilitating the dispersal and migration of migrant birds and, a little way offshore, cetaceans.

Along much of the area's coastal strip there are extensive grasslands, for example the South Shields and Marsden Leas (South Tyneside) with sparsely scattered areas of scrub. Such scrub tends to be low-growing and wind-sculpted, comprising hardy species such as hawthorn and blackthorn, with gorse on free-draining soils. This can be important for migrating birds, particularly in autumn. Important such habitat is found at various locations from Trow, south to Marsden, Whitburn, and the City of Sunderland.

Onshore winds, during migration, sometimes bring 'falls' of migrant birds. On arrival, these make for the first available vegetative cover, often in quarries (for example Marsden Quarry) or parks (for example the North and South Marine Parks, South Tyneside). By virtue of its location, the strategy area attracts a variety of rare birds.

The southern section of coastline was part of the coast famously impacted by man's coal mining activities from the mid-19^th century to the mid-1990s. Since then, time and tide have returned the coast to a more normal profile and state, and coastal wildlife, on and offshore, has recovered to a degree.

At the southern coastal limit, Ryhope Dene is the area's only significantly-sized example of the easterly draining wooded denes of the limestone coast. As well as containing a range of flowering plants and bryophytes, it is an important refuge for passage migrants.

Maritime cliffs and slopes

Maritime cliffs and slopes are well represented between Trow Point and Whitburn Bents (South Tyneside) and, south of Sunderland, between Hendon and Ryhope Dene.

Along South Tyneside's coast there are sea stacks and deeply fissured weathered cliffs, overlaid by boulder clay and herb-rich grasslands. The cliffs reach their highest point (over 30m) at Marsden Bay and Lizard Point. At Marsden Bay, these provide a base for the largest seabird colony between the Farne Isles (Northumberland) and Bempton Cliffs (North Yorkshire).

From coastal headlands, such as Lizard and Souter Point (South Tyneside), the offshore movements of seabirds can be observed and, in favourable autumn conditions, these same locations may provide migrants with their first landfall after crossing the North Sea.

Rocky shores and sandy beaches

Shorelines of both sand and rock are present along the strategy area's coast. The area's rocky foreshores, for example at Whitburn Steel, with their rock pool complexes, host a range of marine life with many species of seaweeds, molluscs, fish and crustaceans. They provide feeding grounds for wintering wading birds including curlews, redshank, purple sandpiper and turnstone, and the habitat-restricted rock pipit.

Sandy beaches, such as those at Roker (in the City of Sunderland) and Sandhaven (South Tyneside), attract not only people but, in the winter, foraging wading birds such as sanderling and ringed plover, plus many gulls.

Sand dunes

Coastal sand dunes are a rare habitat in the strategy area. Small amounts are found near Whitburn, City of Sunderland, and South Shields, South Tyneside. This habitat can be botanically rich, in the context of its location, with plants such as sea sandwort, sea rocket, spear-leaved and grass-leaved orache growing, and, higher up the dune, grasses such as sea couch, marram and lyme-grass.

These areas are weather-dynamic in terms of substrates, and, partly as a consequence of their location at 'in demand' coastal locations, are prone to human-related impacts for example disturbance and erosion.