Tuesday, 25 April 2023

CONTRAST ON THE TEES: words about RSPB Saltholme, Stockton-on-Tees...

 Contrast On The Tees…



A Saturday’s drizzly dullness rendered the Teeside

Backdrop and its glaring industry to a daunting

Mistiness and in the cool April air, distant and haunting.

Seen with awe from the nearby wetland nature reserve

It became an horizon of contrast, giants to unnerve.

The Tees Transporter Bridge seemed to be taunting

With its monstrous blue frame of steel, whilst alongside,

The Port of Middlesbrough’s red sign was flaunting

Itself, near steel and petrochemical works, classified

By huge structures, grimly depressing, yet vaunting

Their vast crudity, which managed merely to serve

To accentuate the natural beauty of the reserve, waterside… 



Pete Ray

24th April 2023


Driving past, then through the vast industrial area in Stockton-on-Tees to reach RSPB Saltholme, I wondered where the hell I was being directed to. 



Immense areas contained huge buildings, pipes, towers and gigantic sheds, then Seaton Carew Road led through an incongruously placed housing estate but the space beyond that had become a fabulous reserve of wetlands.


Birds like sand martins, lapwings, avocets, egrets and many other species were busy there…



A new dragonfly/damselfly area will be a brilliant attraction in the warmer summer months and the RSPB’s centre there is excellent.



Good food, a smart shop and clean, clear viewing windows added to a fine day out, despite the poor, glum weather…  



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