October 26th 2020

Today was sunny and clear to start with but dark clouds blew in and heavy showers permeated the day.

Inland there were not many birds: a lone skylark. Where have the others gone? Two oyster catchers – oblivious of me standing watching them. Overhead a small group of grey lag geese flew past. There are thousands in Aberlady Bay and it is one of Nature’s sights to see huge groups of them flying in and out of the Bay in their V-shaped formations. Today there were only a small number. Their arrival in September heralds autumn.

Only seagulls on the beach this afternoon as the sky clouded over and the waves rolled in. Just into the sanddunes I found this lovely little blue flower

Sea Rocket. This plant was growing very near the beach at the edge of the sand dunes. The seeds can be used for industrial oil. The leaves are similar to rocket lettuce and are edible, rich in vitamin C.

Sea buckthorn is widespread near the beach. It was introduced to try and stabilise the sand then almost took over in some parts. There is now a big effort to try and control the spread. In autumn the orange berries appear – they are difficult to harvest as the buckthorn is extremely prickly but are a source of food for the birds as they are full of vitamin C.