Back on the beach at last

The Safari was able to get a few minutes down on the sands at lunchtime today. It was one of the highest low tides of the year and time was short before the incoming waters covered the beach again.

We had a target in mind but there wasn't much of anything about other than the larger than normal numbers of Common Otter Shells.

Other shells we found were a few Iceland Cyprines

Lots of Prickly Cockles

and we found just singles of Tower Shell

and a gorgeous ?Queen Scallop

A large well worn Native Oyster was a nice surprise, been in the sea a long time. About 15cm long

Bits of seaweed lined the tideline, mostly Spiral Wrack with some strands of Egg Wrack mixed in.

Quite a few birds were on the beach including Patch 2's first Turnstones (P2 #17) and Ringed Plover (P2 #18) which might be somewhere behind the Black Headed Gulls in the pic amongst the Oystercatchers, there were about 30 unapproachable Redshanks too.

By eck it was cold out there! And we didn't find hardly any of our quarry - beach coal for the fire, we thought ther'd be loads after the storms but we only found a couple of bits other than this huge piece which wouldn't fit in Little Bertha. Its about 40cm long and 10 thick

Where to next? Might be back out there on the blustery chilly sands again looking to see what tonight's stormy tide has brought in

In the meantime let us know who's chilling out on the sands in your outback.