Low tide - high tide

As it was the lowest tide for years, a clamber over the rocks seemed a good idea, to see what's out to sea.

The resident crows were my only company.The chalk substrate is pockmarked with holes made, I assume, by the grinding action of molluscs and /or the boring of piddocks. Some areas are also etched with smaller tunnels.
There is a general covering of seaweed, which is more prevalent now than I remember a decade or so ago. Below the low tide line, now briefly uncovered, there was no weed, just bare chalk.

A puzzle was what caused the occasional area of bright purple on some areas of chalk.
Rock pipit

Back on dry land, the most photographed black redstart posed for yet another picture.

And the "high tide" in the title? Well, after all this snow and rain, it's no surprise that the winterbourne streams are running this year. The Drellingore along the Alkham Valley appeared this week, as the water seeps through the chalk and emerges from springs in the valley bottom.

Local lore has it that the Drellingore runs every seven years; to quote Leland: 'ones in a vj or vij yeres brasted owt so abundantly that a great part of the water cummeth into Dovar streme'.