Tide-line Walk
Along one side of the road was a stretch of ploughing, and on the other the beach, a stony stretch that terminated beneath a low cliff where boulders covered with weed marked the out-going tide. On the field were one or two gulls, and on the beach half-a-dozen oyster- catchers. Sometimes the oyster-catchers made short flights, their wings seeming to whirr round rather than beat, so strange is the effect of contrasting black and white. Now and again one of the gulls screamed, but apart from these sounds it was a quiet afternoon, and the tide went'slowly back leaving its flotsam and the tangle the oyster- catchers love to inspect. I walked a little way on the tide-line and came across a dead mallard. Higher up, on the shingle, were several shotgun cartridge-cases. Perhaps there was some connection. I thought about it as I searched for some coloured boulders that would look well in our rockeries, but didn't venture to inspect the duck. The sight of a large stag-beetle in the feathers told me it was decom- posing. The shine on the red cartridges probably indicated that they had been fired more recently than the death of the mallard.
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