Dismal Grey

Our weather at the moment is dominated by a muddle of low pressure areas to the north of us one of which is a named storm - Debi. These have brought low cloud and rain but only moderate to strong easterly winds, just energetic enough to stir up the muddy waters of the North Sea which has continued to exploit the damage done by Babet. Yesterday was a truly miserable day of low cloud and moderate to high winds, the light almost gone by four in the afternoon.

The front along by Dunrobin Castle has had seaweed and other - often human - detritus thrown across it but....

....the sea has broken through the rock defenses right in front of the castle, prompting a hurried delivery of large rocks to fill the gap.

The wildlife hasn't had a chance to recover. On our walk we saw three oystercatchers, the only waders, and not a single living cormorant - though there were plenty of corpses in amongst the seaweed. The only birds which seemed to be enjoying themselves were....

....the gulls which had congregated in large flocks at certain points along the shore where they appeared to be braving the breakers in order to feed on something being washed out of the seaweed - though a close look at the gulls doesn't show them actually feeding. I suppose it's possible that they're just having fun in the waves, just like my brother and I used to have in our inner tyre tubes in the breakers along the beach at Nyali.