Salt-marsh with mud creeks, and Piel Castle Spotlight and floodlight play over Piel Castle and cloud-shadows flow over the salt-marsh threaded with creeks where curlew and redshank call. Shingle, mud-flats and deep-water channels are sunlit, colour and fade. .
To the north, Piel Castle, Barrow, Black Combe and White Combe, the outliers of the fells. To the south, Morecambe Bay and Blackpool Tower. To the west, sand-dunes and the Irish Sea and wind farms.
Small birds flit chirruping over the salt marsh. Sunlit clouds and clarity, a fierce wind from the north. Redshank call and we look up to see scintillating points of light as the flock heads south. Redshank, sentinel of the salt-marsh in a moment of transcendence.
Sunlight colours a curve of shingle. Within the curve, sand shelves into deep water where stanchions define the navigation channel. Rocks cluster where the sand bank plunges into water, smooth voluptuous rocks coloured dark and pale. The North wind makes my eyes water, wrestles me from steadying my camera. A video lurches from focus on those distant rocks. A cormorant flies low and dark heads pop up from the deep- water channel. A rock rolls over and raises a flipper. A small dark seal hauls out of the water onto the sand bank, flops down and shuffles amongst the others. A gull keeps close, looking for food. Perhaps I hear the seals' mournful cry through the loud wind, perhaps not. Ungainly on land, they are powerful and agile in the water. Grey seals, a motley of greys.
Cumbria Wildlife reports that on 5 October the first grey seal pup to be born this breeding season was spotted at South Walney Nature Reserve/.
Sunlight colours a curve of shingle. Within the curve, sand shelves into deep water where stanchions define the navigation channel. Rocks cluster where the sand bank plunges into water, smooth voluptuous rocks coloured dark and pale. The North wind makes my eyes water, wrestles me from steadying my camera. A video lurches from focus on those distant rocks. A cormorant flies low and dark heads pop up from the deep- water channel. A rock rolls over and raises a flipper. A small dark seal hauls out of the water onto the sand bank, flops down and shuffles amongst the others. A gull keeps close, looking for food. Perhaps I hear the seals' mournful cry through the loud wind, perhaps not. Ungainly on land, they are powerful and agile in the water. Grey seals, a motley of greys.
Cumbria Wildlife reports that on 5 October the first grey seal pup to be born this breeding season was spotted at South Walney Nature Reserve/.
In early autumn waders return to coastal regions and the shore. Below the shingle bank, two waders forage in shallow water by the Old Pier. A redshank of warm-coloured plumage and red legs. And the rarer greenshank, of colder colour, a bird which breeds in the Flow Country. Passage birds, unlike the redshank which is seen throughout the year. The melodic redshank call reaches us from fresh water pools where both species are found and little egret rest on a sunny bank.
Waders whose legs and feet may be hidden as they feed in shallow water, colour subdued in poor light. A flock of redshank illuminated shows startling red legs. And when a wader's foot suddenly shows you may be in for a surprise.
Waders whose legs and feet may be hidden as they feed in shallow water, colour subdued in poor light. A flock of redshank illuminated shows startling red legs. And when a wader's foot suddenly shows you may be in for a surprise.
The quality of light made the day memorable. I’ve seen the rare shingle flora looking more colourful and viper’s bugloss and yellow horned poppies were past their best. The flora of the salt-marsh- Salicornia, glasswort and annual seablite - proved photogenic, translucent and colourful. Too late, this year, for the flowers of sea lavender.
Aa we drive slowly beside the salt-marsh a LIttle Egret appears close by and we stop to admire the bird whose white plumage is almost translucent in the afternoon light. And he raises a long black leg to reveal a startling yellow-green foot and long toes with black claws! Next time I see an egret in flight, long black legs trailing, I'll look for those yellow feet.
I wish my mind's-eye might archive images precisely. Or may be the mystery is the magic. I hear redshank call and the flock is a cascade of lights in a bright sky, like a firework.
I wish my mind's-eye might archive images precisely. Or may be the mystery is the magic. I hear redshank call and the flock is a cascade of lights in a bright sky, like a firework.
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