This beautiful pebble looks like a work of art with its white glassy matrix divided by almost geometric fractures and differential staining with red, yellow, and purple.
Patterned Pebble 1
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Category Archives: PEBBLES
Seatown Pebbles
Smooth pebbles, wet and vibrantly coloured, wave-washed and surf-splashed, on the waters’ edge on a bright sunny day at Seatown Beach in Dorset, England, along the World Heritage Jurassic Coast.
Click any picture to enlarge it and view all images in a gallery.
Gabions as Art & Architecture
At Whitstable Harbour gabions have been put to good use in the construction of a remarkable feature. Approaching the construction I could see an intriguing pale line across the darker pebbles, very reminiscent of the pale lines of empty oyster shells that I had just been seeing on the pebble beaches between the breakwaters. Closer inspection proved the pale line to be a symbolic tide line of man-made decorated ceramic pebbles. The feature is known as the Deck at Dead Man’s Corner and is supposed to resemble the bow of a ship, the wall a pebbly beach, and the vertical timber structures are made to the same specification as the groynes along the shore. The ‘tide line’ is a key feature of white ceramic pebbles set into the face of the wall. These were made by local people during a series of public workshops and classes held at the Community College Whitstable. The whole structure comprises seating and a stage built in 2011 for gatherings and events.
Natural Curiosities 1
A collection of natural objects displayed on my mantelpiece at the moment, along with a postcard of a watercolour painting The Pelicans by the artist Angela Gladwell (angelagladwell.co.uk).
Click once on the image to find out what the objects are.
Click twice or three times to see the details of the objects.
Studland Beach Finds
Some of the things that caught my eye as I walked along the beach at Studland in Dorset, England, included interesting beach stones; stranded clumps of red, green, and brown seaweeds; an empty shell of a clam just eaten by a bird; and tubes of Sand Mason Worms.
Seatown Beach Pebbles 1
Seashells & Shingle at Whitstable
The shingle shore at Whitstable in Kent is protected by massive wooden groynes or breakwaters. At the time of my visit, the tide was high and the flint and other mostly worm-holed pebbles were steeply banked. The flat top of the beach was stabilised by vegetation with pink and white valerian and yellow ragwort the most colourful flowers. Pale bands of white empty oyster shells (mostly the rock oyster Crassostrea gigas) were high, dry, and dull on the shingle between the groynes; while lower down splashed by waves or heaped up against the wooden sea defence structures was a great variety of other empty shells including winkles, cockles, mussels, limpets, slipper limpets, whelks, netted whelks, Manila clams, and sting winkles. These were jumbled up with wet and dry seaweed, horn wrack, small pieces of driftwood, and flotsam. There was a marked contrast in the appearance of the shells and stones between the water’s edge where the wet shells were brighter and more colourful and the upper shore where everything was dry.
