Our first walk on the beach

Embleton Beach is definitely a dog walkers beach, though the wide open sky, the sweep of sand and lack of people make it a pleasure for all of us. We are on holiday with my parents, who are both in the eighties, so our usual routine is to walk as far as the golf club, where we eat lunch, and then return. Yesterday we made it both ways, which is a good sign. Last October my dad could only manage one way and then needed to be collected by car.

This was my second walk of the day. I'd already done the circuit first thing in the morning, starting off in sun, which turned into cloud as I neared the holiday huts at the top of the dunes and then back to sparkling sunlight glinting on the waves as I sat on the steps and watched people walking along the beach.

Rabbits in the field and birds to watch along the way, though not much to see from the hides on Low Newton ponds. A photographed, but as yet unidentified small brown bird attracted my attention with its loud call (no bird book with me - but identified later as a Sedge Warbler), a pair of Sandwich Terns on the ponds, black beak with yellow tip and black legs and a thrush that allowed me to capture her/his magnificent spotted breast.

Later an afternoon walk for me, in the other direction along Beadnell Beach, to view the Arctic Terns that now have a whole section of the beach cordoned off for their sole use. Apparently there are around 800 birds this year, which is far more than I expected to see. The area was first established as a colony by the RSPB in the 1970's so in just under 40 years this sizeable colony of nesting birds has built up.

A rare Bearded Seal on the beach , which had remained in the same spot overnight. Much off course, as it is an arctic species, and probably ill and dying. It certainly wasn't moving far as the tide came in around it.

Lovely evening light on Dunstanburgh Castle, but too tired for any more expeditions today.