A Littleferry Wander

By the time we reached the beach at Littleferry this morning, with clouds moving in quickly from the southwest on a strong, chilly breeze, we were almost certain to get wet but not before....

....we enjoyed the privilege of a fly-past over the sea by fifteen swans. It was very difficult to identify the species in silhouette against a bright sky but....

....from the profile of their heads and the extent of orange on their beaks I think they may be whooper swans rather than the rarer Bewick's. Whoopers migrate from Iceland after breeding to spend their winters with us so it's the right time of year for them to be passing us on their way south.

I wrote in yesterday's blog entry how good it is to see something new on our rambles and we did well today, even though this 'new' find was rather dead. The sad little corpse dumped by last night's high tide was about a foot long and is likely to be the remains of a European squid, Loligo vulgaris, the first we've ever seen.

As the rain duly arrived, and before we left the beach to hurry across the links to the shelter of the forestry, we spotted this mass of birds about a hundred metres offshore. They, too, were a bit distant to be sure of an identification....

....but I think they're red-breasted merganser. These, like the swans, are migrating south, some of them having spent the summer in northern Scotland, others in northern Europe.