"Best Beach"

"Brora," The Guardian recently declared, is "the best British beach you've never heard of," so we drove there today to see what effect this discovery had had on said beach, fully expecting it to be ruined by the crowds - to find it as empty as ever which, if I owned The Guardian, would give me pause for thought.

We went there not only to revisit what is a fine beach but not exceptional for this area but also....

....so that the visiting family could prove to themselves that the beach is, at very least, an excellent one for wild swimming, with clear, clean waters, a light breeze and a water temperature hovering around a very acceptable 15C, which left the older members to wander along the beach towards where....

....two flocks of small waders were working the beach for their breakfast.

They were sanderlings, welcome returnees at this time of year and one of....

....the prettiest of the waders, constantly dashing in the swash and backwash of the breaking waves to find their food.

We've seen them on Brora beach before though last time there were....

....many more ringed plovers mixed in with them - look carefully in this picture and there's just one, towards upper left. There was also....

....a lone dunlin - at centre of this picture - looking rather lost.

So we enjoyed a very pleasant couple of hours on the beach - continuing to meet hardly a soul - after which we rewarded ourselves with Italian-style ice creams from Capaldi's in the village's Main Street. Now they are something for the Guardian to get excited about!