Golspie's South Beach

It's a very long time since we last walked the beach to the south of Golspie, at least in part because, since the storm of December 2023, the one access point has been closed off. This is a huge shame as this beach is promoted on the road sign on the A9 as Golspie's 'award-winning beach' - and it is, truly, a lovely beach.

The reason it was closed off is very evident. Along the section running south from the pier large parts of the concrete waterfront have been damaged - this view looks north towards Golspie - awaiting, I suppose, the multi-million pound works that are promised to protect Golspie, and the vital A9, from a future major storm surge.

Some parts of the damaged waterfront are like an archaeological dig: these wooden posts are an earlier version of the village's coastal defences, later replaced by the now-wrecked concrete barrier.

It's possible to get down to the beach by walking along the path that runs between the golf course and the beach, to a point where enough boulders have been removed to enable us to scramble down - at which point we realised we had the beach to ourselves, our only companions being....

....a flock of oystercatchers enjoying the peace and quiet.

Offshore, things were much noisier. At first we thought it was eider that were responsible for the noise but then we realised that there were also....

....a few long-tailed ducks very much involved in their noisy mating processes.

Considering the beach is now so protected from humans and their dogs I would have expected to see much more wildlife but the only other sighting of any note was this pied wagtail, which joins the skylarks and long-tailed ducks in being amongst the earliest spring migrant arrivals.