Like pebbles on a beach

Every beach on Westray has a different character. There are pure white shell sand beaches which wouldn’t be out of place in the Caribbean, mud and stone sand beaches which get your toes dirty, pebble beaches which slide underfoot, and bold boulder beaches which command your attention.

This beach has pebbles and is scattered with ‘incomers’, pebbles from rocks which aren’t found anywhere on Westray. Red Sandstone is found in Eday and was dragged here and deposited by retreating glaciers 15,000 years ago. It’s the reason much of the soil on Westray is red yet the rocks it sits on are dark brown and grey. This island wears another island’s soil.

As I walk the beach I see a nest of three eggs. I say ‘a nest’ but it’s nothing, not even a scrape or depression. It’s just ‘a place’ and nothing more.

It’s highly visible amongst the smooth rocks, with its highly patterned khaki-brown eggs. The Oystercatcher which was incubating them has obviously seen me long, long before I didn’t see it, and has slid off the nest unobtrusively.

Further along the beach there’s another one:

Their eggs really need to be grey and unpatterned to be camouflaged here. Even if they were brick red they would be less visible amongst the pebbles.

Maybe I’ll suggest that to the next Oystercatcher I meet.