Running from the 24th July to 8th August (actually two weeks!), National Marine Week helps us all discover and celebrate our wonderful shore and seas. An initiative of The Wildlife Trusts, National Marine Week is a celebration of all things marine. There are plenty of ways you can get involved, even from the comfort of […]

We’ve had a brilliant time ‘Reading the Rocks’ along the shoreline between Vane Tempest and Ryhope beaches with Geologists Professor Dave Roberts from Durham University and Simon Hendry. The fascinating stories of competing 500-metre thick ice-age sheets, sub-glacial deposits and the layering of Till from numerous ice-ages, 19,000-year old river beds, the disappearance and reappearance […]

We would like to say a huge thank you to Stewart and his amazing team of volunteers from the Hat and Feathers Wetherspoon in Seaham, and everyone else who joined in last weeks beach clean with Louise at Red Acre beach. We collected 10 bags of rubbish, including around 100 bottles and cans, 5 disposable […]

What a splashing start to #NationalMarineWeek today!! Dee from Durham Wildlife Trust began with an early cetacean survey at Roker Pier, then met our young volunteers, the Beach Rangers, who learned how to use hydrophones and recorded the sounds of rockpool wildlife. We listened to crashing waves, crackling seaweed, the fizzing and popping sounds of […]

The sun shone, the dolphins came to play, and fossils were found at the latest ‘Summer at the Shore’ series at Blackhall Rocks. Once again Professor McGoogle and his trusty aids, Mallory and her mum, led the Coastal Time Detective Team to discover millions of years of history beneath our feet in the form of […]

Great work by volunteers from Believe Housing Limited who joined Beach Care and Aware Officer Louise Harrington on 29th June. 19 bags of heavy rubbish were collected from Blast Beach. Thank you so much everyone. We are looking forward to seeing you again soon.

This time last week the Adaptive Surfing Roadshow visited South Shields to train up surf coaches. In the afternoon a group from St Oswald’s Hospice came down to try adaptive surfing, and had a great time.

Karen and Vicky went to visit the Little Tern protected nesting site at Seaton Carew Beach; it was amazing to watch them in action! After the initial nests getting washed away in the recent bad weather, the Little Tern Warden (Durham Wildlife Trust) shared that approximately 14 pairs of birds have just started to sit […]

Year 5 at St Cuthbert’s Primary School joined Dee for a North Sea Explorers rockpooling workshop this morning at Seaham Hall Beach. We were lucky enough to find lots of crabs and shells, as well as a shore rockling fish, and a well camouflaged shrimp. The highlight was probably a small pod of dolphins which […]

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Hawthorn Beach yesterday for ‘Summer at the Shore’ with the lovely artists from The Barn at Easington. We joined Mallory and her mum, and Professor McGoogle, and for a moment, became the Coastal Time Detective Team. The sun shone as we hunted for sea glass and used our buckets […]

Today [8th June] is World Ocean Day and the perfect opportunity to introduce the UK’s first marine Landscape Partnership scheme and brand-new project team in the North East: SeaScapes. Durham County Council secured National Lottery support via a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £2.8m, matched by partner contributions and volunteer time, for the exciting […]