Saturdays Finds

The long east beach of an adjoining island was sadly almost free of finds.

This is a small group of tiny, tiny shells and things we found. That was all. The long, long beach was empty of anything really :(

There were a group of newly washed up creels, each infested with algae and seaweed. The creels were all damaged and remained unclaimed. Perhaps dislodged in a storm and finally washed to shore? They were not there two weeks ago. We wondered what creatures had been trapped inside and for how long. Were the damaged sides a sign that the catches had escaped or had the creels been damaged by a larger prey as feasted on as a form of convenient takeaway? We though of creatures trapped in creels that were not regularly checked and how they remained trapped inside for ..........how long?

There were a number of large mussles shells strewn in a area of the dunes - the feast of a bird? They were all opened but this has not been seen anywhere before. The muscles round the shores are all very small. If birds havest you will find the dmaged shells that have been dropped on rocky areas and broken open. These were all large and over an area of about 6 meters up the dunes, just off the beach. There was a new blow out next to this area that we noticed when we went up to explore the empty muscles shells. Perhaps tourists camping on the machair on above and flinging down the shells to the beach below? The blowout was a very interesting one and like a shielded bowl shape with a hidden interior. I climbed up and lay there for a while enjoying the peace and seclusion. We did not take the camera though.....

Climbing down carefully, so as not to disturb the dune sides leading to the beach (preventing erosion), we carried on walking along the last hightide line . A few strands of dried seaweed, tiny hsells and a couple of tiny crabs. We were so intent on what we could find that we almost walked into a crouched beach dog. They li in wait on the beach all day for their fishermen owners. Occassionally you can get them to play with you. My sister found a rare piece of wood above the blowout but it had a nail in so we floated it out to sea.

Driftwood is so full of character and life and when if finds it way to the beach the locals just burn it for fire wood. SO SAD! It should be treasured as a gift from the sea. This piece was still in its plank form and could have done with some character.

The dog followed us in his sheepdog way. It was a very old dog and not to steady on it feet, or perhaps it had been at the whiskey?

We found some shells, some remains of eggs on a piece of seaweed, some tiny crab shells (moulted) of different colours. Sadly the crab shells disintergrate when you carry them and so they dont last long. I noticed this interesting bit on on e of the hind legs of the one crab. I want to find out what it is.

In the blow out I found this really interesting shell I have not seen before. We have some sea shell books and sea shore books so I will have a look and see if I can find it.

So not much to see on the beach :( We went to my blue rayed limpet beach last week. Not much to see either. A big long piece of black tube washed up like a gigantic elephant truck and it was so heavy and stiff it would not budge. The shells were so tiny and few. It was high tide and nothing to see.

The beaches are so fragile that if something disturbs the balance then all those magical creatures whose shells make up the beach, disappear.

After winter storms you get a lot of things washing up but then its too wild to go walking out and the tons of seaweed that washup as well hide the finds.

We always think that considering how isolated these beaches all are and how few people there are, there really is not much to see? Very odd. You will almost never find others on the beach although there are a few. A couple of the beaches are so filled with shells but on a singular type in each beach (one kind of shell only) that there is no space to walk. Some huge pebble beaches and some plain sand ones. Large areas of rocky coast where we scramble form rock to rock looking into the rockpools but almost never found anything of interest. In other places in the world we have found so many things in the rock pools but here so little. So many years of overfishing perhaps??

This past winter some of the beaches have been rearranged but the beach where we were today is unchanged apart from the creels that washed up and the new blowout.