Worms

There's a very pleasant little picnic area on the east side of Loch Fleet where NatureScot, the government body which cares for Scotland's natural heritage, has sited benches, a picnic table and a couple of 'interpretative boards' which describe the wildlife which might be visible out on the loch.

Benches have become increasingly important to us as welcome places to ease our old bones after a walk through the woods and along the Littleferry beach, but I find myself increasingly depressed when I sit beside the loch as there is so little wildlife to be seen.

These pictures were taken yesterday, looking out across the exposed mudflats of low tide to the bird hide on the north shore, when the main wildlife on the mudflats was....

....worms. Well, not the actual worms, but the casts the worms push to the surface as they work their way through the mud.

Worm casts aren't terribly exciting things to watch but the one thing that did impress me was their sheer numbers: there must have been millions of them. Yet the number of birds feeding on them was pitifully small. In this close-up view there are three gulls and a curlew, of which only the curlew has the bill to probe for worms.

Where are the other waders that one would normally expect to be feasting on this banquet? Is it normal for there to be so few at this time of year? Someone please tell me that I'm worrying unnecessarily.