Wild shores

I will always remember my first early-morning boat trip to the very tip of Blakeney Point. We crossed the wide harbour to a narrow shingle spit, where land meets sea and sea meets sky. In high summer, this hook of shingle is often crammed with wild creatures, as marine mammals mingle with aerial acrobats. On that morning, terns dived into the water, emerging with small fish to feed to their hungry chicks, which were gathered in a group on the shoreline, stretching their wings and taking their maiden flights. Next to them, seals snoozed on the sand, their mournful calls almost drowned out by the scratchy cries of terns and screeches of black-headed gulls.

Blakeney Point is all about movement. The tide moving in and out twice daily, shifting the sand and shingle every few hours. Seabirds and seals moving through the water to catch fish, which come in and out of the harbour with the tide. Mudflats and saltmarsh are revealed at low tide, the escaping water drawing back like a curtain, exposing a rich feeding ground for wading birds. Resident redshanks, ringed plovers and oystercatchers probe for molluscs and worms.

SUMMER’S HIGHLIGHTS

By July, chicks may be seen clumsily learning to run and pulling their first worms. And as August approaches, bird migration picks up and curlews move through on passage, their haunting calls echoing across the landscape.

There’s a changing cast of plants, too. The fleshy green shoots of samphire – or ‘poor man’s asparagus’ – contrast with the greyer leaves of sea purslane on the creek edges. The beautiful mauve haze of sea lavender dominates the marsh in July, although the colour becomes progressively duller throughout the month as tides repeatedly cover it. It’s a harsh place, with all that saltwater, but these plants are well adapted to the environment. On the sand dunes and shingle, plants with long roots help fix the substrate as they search for fresh water beneath the surface. All of these habitats are rare, unique, fragile an