The Common Cockle

I found this shell complete with hinge down under the walls of Fort George at Ardesier during low tide the other day and picked it up in case of an emergency. Today's the day. It's lousy out there. Low grey cloud with a penetrating mizzle and misty. Milly has flatly refused to go out and is laying beside me as I blip.

Although usually spending its life buried at a shallow depth in sand and fine gravel from where it is raked out by commercial cockle fishers on a large scale, individual specimins of the common cockle Cerastoderma edule may also be found on the surface during unusually low tides. In flat sheltered bays numbers may reach astronomical proportions with juveniles settling down on the sand in densities of as much as 10,000 per square metre. As the numbers suggest it is an abundant species around the coasts of Northern Europe although it is the empty shells that are most often found.

When photographed, it is usual to take the picture from above to show the banded pattening and grooves of the shell. I decided to take this unconventional view and it reminds me of an old witch with a turned up chin and a hooked nose.