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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/05/country-diary-seaweed-shimmers-spume-spray-charmouth-beach-dorset
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Country diary: seaweed shimmers amid the spume and spray | Country diary: seaweed shimmers amid the spume and spray |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| A little past high tide on a gusty morning, the grey surf rears up and pours over, raking the pebbles with an endless crash and hiss. Charmouth Beach is strung with brisk early-morning dog walkers and slow tide-creepers like me, inching along, examining the night’s treasures. | A little past high tide on a gusty morning, the grey surf rears up and pours over, raking the pebbles with an endless crash and hiss. Charmouth Beach is strung with brisk early-morning dog walkers and slow tide-creepers like me, inching along, examining the night’s treasures. |
| The waves crease and fold, heavy as wet sheets, casting up seaweed threshed from submerged rocks below. Leathery brown ribbons of kelp tangle with long strings of dead man’s bootlaces (Chorda filum). Broad, smocked lengths of yellow-brown sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima), puckered as old shoe-elastic, are drying and crisping in the wind. Shreds of brilliant green sea lettuce cling to forked fronds of carrageen, multicoloured as plastic decorations made for a child’s toy aquarium. There’s pink grape pip weed and the mossy, scarlet tufts of berry wart cress.Bladderwrack lies in mounds, its khaki pods slimy as deflated peas left in the bottom of the dishwasher, licked by the pimpled, saw-edged tongues of serrated wrack. Later in the day, as the algae dry, wasps and flies will come, attracted by its rotting, sticky sweetness. But for now the spoil smells fresh and clean, of ozone and salt. | The waves crease and fold, heavy as wet sheets, casting up seaweed threshed from submerged rocks below. Leathery brown ribbons of kelp tangle with long strings of dead man’s bootlaces (Chorda filum). Broad, smocked lengths of yellow-brown sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima), puckered as old shoe-elastic, are drying and crisping in the wind. Shreds of brilliant green sea lettuce cling to forked fronds of carrageen, multicoloured as plastic decorations made for a child’s toy aquarium. There’s pink grape pip weed and the mossy, scarlet tufts of berry wart cress.Bladderwrack lies in mounds, its khaki pods slimy as deflated peas left in the bottom of the dishwasher, licked by the pimpled, saw-edged tongues of serrated wrack. Later in the day, as the algae dry, wasps and flies will come, attracted by its rotting, sticky sweetness. But for now the spoil smells fresh and clean, of ozone and salt. |
| On blowy days when the wind is onshore, it froths the sea, whipping the breakers’ lacy meringue edges into masses of spume. Heaps of salty snow quiver at the tide’s edge, occasional lumps of foam breaking free to bowl raggedly across the sand. Myriad small bubbles made of dissolved algae, salts and proteins magnify and reflect in an exquisite shimmer of violet, emerald and rose. | On blowy days when the wind is onshore, it froths the sea, whipping the breakers’ lacy meringue edges into masses of spume. Heaps of salty snow quiver at the tide’s edge, occasional lumps of foam breaking free to bowl raggedly across the sand. Myriad small bubbles made of dissolved algae, salts and proteins magnify and reflect in an exquisite shimmer of violet, emerald and rose. |
| Ebb and flow: Britain's tidal coastline – in pictures | Ebb and flow: Britain's tidal coastline – in pictures |
| Out on the waves, a dozen common terns ride the swell, rising and falling with the swing of the sea. Nicknamed “sea swallows” for their long, forked tails and graceful flight, terns migrate south in winter. This group are about to depart, having left their breeding grounds further east at the brackish lagoon behind the shingle bank of Chesil Beach. Overhead, a scattering of house martins flickers along the cliffs. They too are preparing to leave. Summer is ebbing fast. | Out on the waves, a dozen common terns ride the swell, rising and falling with the swing of the sea. Nicknamed “sea swallows” for their long, forked tails and graceful flight, terns migrate south in winter. This group are about to depart, having left their breeding grounds further east at the brackish lagoon behind the shingle bank of Chesil Beach. Overhead, a scattering of house martins flickers along the cliffs. They too are preparing to leave. Summer is ebbing fast. |
| Coastlines | Coastlines |
| Country diary | Country diary |
| Marine life | Marine life |
| Plants | Plants |
| Birds | Birds |
| Autumn | Autumn |
| Wildlife | Wildlife |
| features | features |
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