Moules Marinieres

When I wake at six thirty - courtesy of my Little Owl alarm call – I normally utter something about culling non native species, turn over, and fall back asleep. This morning was slightly different. Instead of pulling the covers over my eyes, I decided to drive down to the Point of Ayr under the cloak of darkness.

I was hoping to find a Shortie or two hunting over the dunes, but all I found was a steady stream of zombie-like dog walkers in reflective jackets.

As a change of tactic I decided to trawl the strandline on the beach all the way up to Gronant – and back – with, again, little success.

Reluctantly I then started to grill the gulls – not literally – as I headed back towards the lighthouse. And there were absolutely thousands of them – all taking advantage of the large amounts of mussels, razorfish, whelks, oysters, etc that last week’s storm must have washed-up on the beach.

Fond of the odd bit of foraging myself, I decided the free moules were too good to miss, so in the pocket fifty of the largest went. Probably past there best I would have thought, but unlike fungi at least there isn’t a chance of them killing me!

After gathering my free lunch, I walked over to the shoreline to run the rule over the still water. A couple of Great Crested Grebes were fairly close in, but even nearer still was a cracking immature Great Northern Diver – my first ‘non fly past’ here.

Realising I was now parallel to the end of the spit, I decided to have one last comb of the sand and shingle and this time my luck changed when I almost trod on a single Snow Bunting.

Withdrawing to the top of the dune, I sat down and watched the bird prodding around the pebbles for a good half an hour. An excellent end to a profitable morning…

Now, where’s the white wine.

Until later.