For those about to rockpool....

Headed out to do some reconnaissance for the Capturing Our Coast research, checking out the rocks at Gullane Point, walking in from Aberlady. I like the walk anyway, with generally some interesting birds about (and today there were Meadow Pipits and Skylarks all over the place), but wandering around the pools just felt like a million miles away from everything. So much so that it was only when walking back to the car that we realised we'd been out for about 5 hours.

I added to the time by spending 10 minutes crouched over one pool watching a couple of hermit crabs stretching just enough out of their shells to mate. But we also came across some brittle stars (the extras aren't working for me at the moment, so I can't show off the incredible form and colours); beadlet anenomes galore (obviously including the above); there was a common scoter off the headland (we normally get the velvets on this side of the Firth); Eiders galore, as well as Cormorants, and even some Gannets. Just brilliant.

All after having spent a bit of time this morning pulling together a photo mag of the 2015/16 Scottish cyclocross season, that I'm struggling to upload due to ongoing EE problems (two visits from BT Openreach have so far cleared up our phoneline, so looks like the problem is with EE, who we've only been with for about two months...). It takes long enough just to upload this single image to Blip, and I've a Flickr backlog because it takes about 15 minutes per picture, and has a habit of timing out just as it looks like hitting 100%.

All very frustrating. Hence enjoying the time out in the sun.