The Long Nanny estuary meets the sea a short wander along Beadnell Bay, or on a parallel walk behind the dunes following a path through the caravan park then twisting through marram grass. Water meets water and the incoming flood swirls and eddies there as it pushes out to the marshes.
Is the snake and shine of the estuary what incoming migrant birds see as they navigate to their sometime home – to the same spot they have always come to? Sanderlings make the flight from the far arctic, stop here for feeding, then on to sub-saharan lands. Or some come to breed in the marsh lands – the Little Tern, the Ringed Plover, and the warblers, pipits, larks and thrushes stop over here en route to I’m not sure where. I sit and take a short time with this meeting place, enough for a cup of tea and pencil sketch before it gets too cold, looking right from my bench towards a creeping mist and left to the clear blue of sea and sky. I’d come back here.
