Sea aster

In the low late afternoon sunlight, the saltmarsh at Sandside is glowing with the seed heads of sea asters.  Rounding the corner from Milnthorpe, and dazzled by the sun, it's like looking across an upland bog full of cotton grass.  In a photograph it's so difficult to do it justice against the glare of the setting sun.

A few years ago this was all mud, then tufts of Spartina began to appear, trapping sediment, raising the level of the marsh and creating conditions for the other salt marsh plants to establish.  It bucks the trend on our side of the Kent estuary of saltmarsh erosion and loss which has counterbalanced the growing marsh on the Grange-over-Sands side.  The patterns of sediment deposition and erosion shift as the main channel of the Kent in time snakes back and forth across the the estuary.  Will the development of this fresh marsh here be followed by the return of saltmarsh further down the estuary and round the corner to Silverdale in the Bay?

It was a spectacular end to a day that began overcast with rain showers. As I write this, I'm still a day behind, and I have a few back blips I want to upload.  I'll get there eventually.