Country diary: This beach is ever-changing. Today it is black with sea coal

Alnmouth Bay, Northumberland: Once dumped in the water as waste, the coal returns in waving patterns, totally transforming the viewOn this windy day the sea is powering across the sands between Marden Rocks and Seaton Point. Light bounces off the shining beach and it's hard to look at the water for its brilliance. Wiggly piles of lugworm casts lie in neat coils and oystercatchers probe and stab with mud-tipped red beaks. There are just a few dog walkers today, but plenty of birds taking advantage of the turbulence.Wheeling flocks of golden plover are flashing green-gold then silver as they turn in unison. Redshanks and turnstones work the sea's margin and starlings scrabble among newly deposited heaps of seaweed. Every time I come here the beach has a different character: washed flat and empty, lumbered with boulders or metre-deep in weed, redolent with oozing black liquid that I wish I could bottle for my garden. Continue reading...