Yesterday's gale was an easterly and its effects were very visible in Ferry Woods as we walked through them to Littleferry beach this morning, with trees twisted and torn down by the wind bouncing over the steep bank where the wood gives way to the open links.
With the wind still blowing from the east at about force 4, the heavy waves of a rising tide were coming well up the beach leaving....
....tidelines of spume snaking along the smoothed sands, across which....
....this pair of tracks had been laid. We've seen their like before and think it's a seal, perhaps a young one which sought shelter at the top of the beach before the high tide and then made its way back to the sea after the tide fell through the early hours of this morning.
Sections of the marram dunes at the back of the beach also show signs of erosion by the recent gale-driven tides, with whole sections cut back and the sand of the beach moved around: it used to reach across to cover the pebbles visible here.
A flock of almost a dozen small birds were working their way through the scattered weed. I had some difficulty in identifying them but they may be twites. Scottish twites breed in the highlands of western and northern Scotland but move down to the coast in small flocks during the winter.
As usual we ended our walk on the shores of Loch Fleet, sitting on a bench enjoying the sunshine while we watched the birds working the salt flats as the tide came in. As well as at least two species of gull and some crows, there were small groups of waders, including curlew, oystercatcher, redshank, and two smaller species we couldn't identify at this range, and ducks, including mallard, wigeon and half a dozen shelduck. While this is a good range of species what was noticeable was that each was present in relatively small numbers.
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