Balmedie Beach

At Balmedie Beach. More details later.

It was frosty, duckboards frozen. I wore my lined Craghopper trousers, fleece mid-layer, and fleece-lined Montane Verso windproof jacket. And a hat. Same gear as I wore last weekend. Toasty.

Same shot below, but cropped in to a panorama.

Light, clouds, sea and sand, all from one viewpoint at Balmedie beach, just north of Aberdeen.

I turned back to see my footprints in the sand, but it was so cold, that there weren't any.

After the shots down the beach, I walked in to the dunes to see what was worth protecting from development further up the coast. Heck, what do I know about them? Fun to play in and walk about in, but worth getting into a fuss about? Maybe they are too easy to get to, and just get taken forgranted? They may look pretty, but so was the lass I'd walked down here with years before. Then things got interesting. Remains of WW2 anti-invasion defences.

A frozen pond and frost-crusted dunes woke me up, as they formed sleek, feminine lines.

And then I wondered how many hundreds of years ago would this tidemark have last touched the sea?

And from the long view, I realised that micro-scapes were being formed at my feet.

I turned away from the inshore dunes, and returned to the sea. Wondering at what I had seen, and how it was formed. There had been no information leaflets at the car park, and the barest of information on the information boards. I was used to more than this when I visited places like the Linn of Dee. So, I need to find out more myself.

Returning to the seashore, the light has changed again. And then I went into sports mode, clicking off shots of Sanderlings at ISO800, filling up the remains of the 2gig CF card.

Described in my copy of the BBC's "The Birdwatcher's Handbook": small loose groups twinkle along at great speed on sandy shores next to the sea like clockwork toys, heads darting from side to side, chasing after retreating waves to snap up morsels left by tide. No other wader moves so fast or with such energy.

This needs an "Our Tune" playing in the background. Romantic Balmedie Beach.

Finishing off the walk with a robin back at the carpark. If it was more festive I could have saved a fortune on Christmas cards. That would have been my trump card.