A beachcombing trip with added Hebridean magic
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Version 0 of 1. It's a lovely day for a spot of beachcombing. Not the purpose-driven, firewood-finding, fishbox-collecting sort, but instead an hour or so of ambling in the sunshine – and this particular beach is perfect for that. For some reason it never accumulates much in the way of wood or plastic or any other sort of large object. But a slow stroll with eyes fixed on the sand turns up all kinds of small rewards. A shell bleached and broken, its outer surface decorated with a delicate tracery of worm casts is there to be examined, mentally compared with those already resting on the window sill at home and then either pocketed or replaced on the beach. Pure white pebbles, some not much larger than pearls but all sea-smoothed and delightful to hold, lie among what at first glance seems like a scatter of rather more ordinary stones. But a closer examination and a quick wetting with sea water brings out a variety of colours and textures. Greys and grey greens, browns and slaty blues, some are as smooth as the white pebbles, others fascinating crystalline combinations of red and white and black. Today I'm really in luck. The falling tide has left behind a couple of pieces of frosted sea glass in lovely shades of turquoise, which lie gleaming like discarded jewels on the still-damp sand. Rarely looking up from the sand, absorbed in the gentle pleasures of the search and the warmth of the sun, there still remains an automatic registering of the sounds about one. A distant flock of terns, their tirricking calls just about audible, are busy somewhere over the sea. A whimbrel, still presumably on its way north, utters a series of repeated single notes. But it is the sounds from the fields behind the beach where a hidden corncrake crexes away without pause and a corn bunting sings in bursts of jangling song that lends this beachcombing trip a special touch of Hebridean magic. |