Sunday 17 April 2011

Don't Panic!



It's been a mixed day today - this morning was grey and a bit gloomy, it rained for a while and we were in no hurry to get ourselves ready to go out, however once that had blown over there was clearly some brightness waiting to get out from behind the clouds. it finally made it mid afternoon - and was perfectly timed for a walk on one of our favourite beaches on the island of Berneray - 3 miles of perfect white sands and often not another soul to be seen. (Today there were two other souls, but hey, that's not bad for 3 miles of it!).

A regular feature of many of our beach walks are the huge flocks of various different types of wading birds that can be seen. Today we saw Purple Sandpipers, Ringed Plovers, Sanderlings, Oystercatchers and also a Dunlin, as well as the Turnstones pictured above. Funny little birds - they can be quite happy one moment picking their way along the shoreline turning over bits of seaweed and - funnily enough - stones, to see what tasty morsels they can find. Then, with no warning at all something startles them and they all take flight and land again some distance off down the beach! Sometimes in fairness it is one of us trying to creep up unnoticed with camera in hand that alarms them, but on most occasions it's something completely unknown!



There you go - just for Auntie D - West beach, Berneray. Now wouldn't you just LOVE to be walking along there?!

Robyn

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