This morning I joined a party of holidaymakers staying on
the Caravan Club site for a guided educational walk along the beach,
accompanied by Paul Tarling, Warden of the nearby RSPB Salt Marsh Reserve at
the Crook of Baldoon. We learnt about the culinary, medicinal, agricultural and
industrial uses of seaweed, and identified several varieties such as bladderack, sugar kelp and sea lettuce. We heard about sea
creatures found beneath our feet that had a symbiotic relationship, some like
the naughty innocuous dog whelk that fed on others, the sad plight of the local
turtles who died from consuming plastic carrier bags, mistaking them for edible
jelly fish, all of which are vital to maintaining a healthy, bio-diverse
environment. Much of what Paul told us I knew once but had forgotten, so it was
rewarding to focus back down on the amazing stories that some of the individual
animals that inhabit our seas and beaches hold, and to appreciate anew their
importance to our planet.
The new slogan for the RSPB is ‘GIVING NATURE A HOME’, and my next visit of the day continued this
theme, in that rather than revealing the threat that mankind presents to the
natural world, it celebrated everything that Man can achieve when working in harmony
with nature. So, my trip around LOGAN GARDENS followed my hunt for an Internet
facility to update my Blog, which I eventually tracked down to a tiny room in
the village of Drummore, which was the homespun Tourist Information Centre,
staffed by volunteers from the local community, and sadly under threat of
closure- another victim of council cuts and the biting recession.
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