We walked the as-usual-almost-deserted sands at Littleferry this morning, finding jellyfish - mostly lion's mane but also moon and blue - including....
....what is probably the largest lion's mane we've seen here, though not as big as the giants we met on Ardnamurchan's beaches.
Then we came across a starfish in delicate lavender shade, about 10cm across and the first starfish we've seen on Golspie's beaches, but....
....it was soon followed by another, this time in pale pink and with a slightly smoother 'skin' texture. Although they are rather different, they appear both to be members of the species
Asterias rubens, the common starfish of the North Atlantic.
We wandered gently along a wide beach exposed by a low tide until we reached the point where the sea flows into and out of Loch Fleet, to find that the edge of the water was....
....covered with hundreds of dead starfish in the common starfish's main colours, lavender, pink, light brown and....
....yellow.
We have no idea why there should have been this sudden mortality except to suggest it might be connected to yesterday's strong, cold northeaster.
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