After the dreary weather we've all been subject to recently it is a joy to wake up to sunlight and you can't help but want to get out and make the most of it. I am lucky to have a number of habitats to explore local to home and one day this week just cried out to be enjoyed by the water's edge. I often take a camera but forgot this day so went back the next day with it for a specific reason which I'll share.....
Tenby's South beach and dune system is a favourite for a winter day or summer's evening walk. It is either very quiet or just peopled enough to make it feel like you're not in a crowd. I am always scanning the strandline for things, often ranting at the amount of plastic washed ashore or marvelling at a particular shell or rock or pattern in the sand where it is crossed by the returning tide. Until this week I had never seen any goose barnacles so I had to go back the next day with the camera and hope that they were still there.
And they were. Thousands of them festooned on a rope about 12 feet long. They had obviously been battered about overnight and were now covered in sand, no longer the clean and fresh specimens from the day before. I later read that boat owners cut their ropes adrift as the sheer weight of these barnacles is a hindrance to their passage. Like all things they are fascinating when you try to find out more.
I admit to being a compulsive collector when I am out on any walk, no matter where it is. If something will fit into my hand and if I think that removing it will cause no detrimental or significant loss, it somehow finds its way into my pocket. That it is small and can be carried lightly is a rule... so no tree trunks then, despite being a thing of beauty. I always try and limit myself to three things maximum per visit but when you walk on the beaches so often those rocks mount up and it is finding rocks that give me the greatest pleasure.
I love finding stones with complex patterns or forms or even simple ones. These three were what came home in my pocket on Wednesday along with the bird ring. OK, I know that makes 4 things so I broke my own rule but it was plastic and at least the bird was not still attached to it! I don't know when I'll use any of these items but they are all adding to my visual memory and waiting for their time in the spotlight.
8 comments:
There seems to be a lot of goose barnacles washing up at this time. I had never seen them before until the past few weeks. I also saw in the local paper that some had washed up attached to a discarded plastic something-or-other and they have been taken to the local Sea Life Centre to form part of a local life collection.
Love the descriptions of goose barnacles in medieval writing. You can see how they imagined the geese to come from them. They're a delicacy called percebes in some countries but I've never fancied tying them! Fantastic weather - the blue of the sky gives one a hope for Spring.
I still have shells I collected in my early teens five decades ago, I am sure I will use them sometime. I had never seen goose barnacles before but found a few attached to a glass bottle a few weeks ago.
and we saw them on kelp and plastic junk on our False Bay beach.
Strange looking creatures.
Will you report the bird ring? Perhaps it is useful to know the bird is no longer.
Reporting the bird ring was on my mind too Diana but I could find no way to do it or to even know the source of it. I think it has to have a corresponding number for it to actually be able to link to an individual bird. From the size of it I would say it belongs to a large seabird or wildfowl. Spurred on by your comment I will try again.
Thank you for letting me know that goose barnacles exist. I'd not know of them before now!
I think your three found stones are very beautiful, and am sure that they will inspired your artistry.
xo
I'm not sure I've seen goose barnacles before. I did enjoy my walk along that beautiful beach with you. I'd be putting things in my pockets too!
I found some of these growing out of a glass bottle on our beach a few weeks ago, had no idea what they were, now I know.
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