Jac Marriott, Pennant 786

Wild

I see shapes and shingle, sand upon the shore. Stark wild beauty of tufted grass and dipsacus fullonum, or teasel to you and me standing upright and proud amongst the stones. Silene Uniflora (sea campion) form dense mats pierced by Arrhenatherum elatius (false oat grass), all interspersed with branched and delicate lichens, emerald, sage, mossy greens. A flattened landscape of shingle spit Where once the memory of cold war days, man and machine, is now found in slow decay. As I stand and look across the vast expanse of sky and sea, there are moments — silence — broken only by the wail of the east wind, or the cawing cries of Sterna hirundo (common tern), Recurvisostra avosetta (Avocet) and Lara argentatus (herring gull). The ebb and flow of tidal waters are a constant reminder of time moving on, longshore drift changing the shape of this strip of land, Orford Ness, into an ever wilder beauty.