The shifting headlands of cockle shells at Shellness provides shelter to a huge saltmarsh and these are some of the wildest and most natural coastal habitats in Kent since there is no sea wall to keep the tidal waters in check. At high tide, the sea almost covers the entire headland but just stops short…
Tag: Turnstone
Spoonbills and sandwiches
August 30th At Shellness, the flocks of waders and waterfowl are enjoying the easy pace of the balmy summer. Swallows move along the beach in small flocks; a wheatear forages on the shingle. There is a late summer silence at high tide mainly because the Brent geese have not arrived. Sandwich terns are roosting…
Whitstable and Margate
The sun rises slowly over the black hill and strikes the sleeping town; it lights the flocks of restless turnstones that sit out the high tide on the quayside and flat-topped marker buoy, clad in rough-hewn timber. A single Sandwich tern flies by and a cormorant perches precariously on a high marker post. The coast…
Whitstable Shore
Whitstable is quiet without the summer visitors or weekenders down from the Smoke. The few about are pensioners and young mothers in the main. A couple of windsurfers tiptoe down the beach and soon have more zip than most. The westerly is only tamed by turning your back or finding some shelter. Whitstable seafront; ale, fish…