Sandwiches

This is the coastline at Sandwich Harbour to the south of Swakopmund in Namibia. It's a fierce but stunning stretch of dunes and drifting sand, their pink colour coming from the abundance of almandine garnets in its composition, one of those rare places where desert meets the sea.

Along one section of the coastline the beach has drifted to....

....separate a stretch of water from the open Atlantic ocean, and the brackish waters of this lagoon are home to thousands of migrating birds including many terns. These pictures were taken when we visited Namibia in October 2009, too early to see the main wave of migrants escaping from the European winter.

This remote but beautiful spot came to mind because Sandwich Harbour is the winter destination for sandwich terns, and the sandwich terns have just arrived back on our shores. Our attention was drawn to them because they call to each other as they quarter back and forth just offshore along our beaches.

I had assumed that these intrepid, long-distance migrants were named after their winter home but I was wrong: they are named after a much less exotic place, Sandwich in Kent.