Very occasionally we come across a track like this on the lower beach, usually where it's still a bit damp from the falling tide. It's less than a centimetre wide and usually starts suddenly, wanders randomly around, then ends as suddenly. We had no idea what made it until....
....we came across this little snail wending his way across what must, to such a tiny creature, have seemed like an endless desert.
I'm happy to be corrected but I think it's a common periwinkle,
Littorina littorea, perhaps a young one. The species mostly feeds on algae, for which it grazes across rocks or mud, or on weed. I can't believe it was getting much sustenance from the sand, and it's very exposed, which probably explains why most of the other tracks we'd seen ended suddenly, perhaps when a seagull swooped down.
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