Fishermen's Friend

This morning I joined my sister and niece in a bit of retail therapy which included a visit to a well known coffee house for hot chocolate and muffins. It was very satisfying especially as there were little snow flurries causing us to pull our hats closer to our heads with our firmly gloved hands.

This afternoon the wind had died down and I joined my brother-in-law for a walk along the beach which seemed to stretch for ever as the tide was at its lowest. The dogs thought they were in heaven and had a fabulous time running across the damp sand chasing each other. As I walked I was struck by the huge number of coiled castings across the sand and was told that these marked one end of U shaped burrows belonging to marine animals called Lugworms. Beside the castings are circular indentations in the sand which mark the "head" of the burrow. Apparently the lugworm, which can be as much as 9" long, is rarely seen and lies in the U shape with its head near this indentation and as the water sends sand down the shafts the lugworm digests it, gathering what goodies it needs and eventually excretes the residue from the other end of the U to form these casts. Fishermen love lugworms and they will go along the sand at low tide digging into the burrows to extract the worm which they will then use for bait. Other predators include birds with long beaks, like curlews, or possibly large fish when the tide comes in and the burrows are covered by water. In this blip you can see the castings, indentations and the footprints of sea birds who also walked across the wet sand at some point. From the low viewpoint the casts actually look like a mini forest on the sand.

Tomorrow I will set off back across the Scottish border to home.