Where the sea eats the land

I'm standing to take the picture high above the shingle beach, a long drop in front of me. A hundred years ago, or less, a lane descended to the shore here. The stone-and-earth filled banks on either side break off in mid-air where once pony carts made their way down to collect sand and pebbles or to take families for a seaside picnic. Now you have walk down the grassy slope further to the south, visible here.

It's been a long process of erosion at Abermawr. In prehistoric times the sea took a great gulp out of the land: the waterlogged remnants of tree roots, like slimy velvet to the toes, can still be seen at the lowest tides. Ever since, the waves have been licking and sucking at the cliffs, nibbling away at the soft glacial till and exposing the underlying stone by scooping out the looser material, sometimes taking bigger bites that bring down rock falls and release great boulders from the matrix.

I knew that last winter's storms had taken a toll here and I was curious to see the result. If you're interested in this kind of thing I've put a series of images in a Flickr album here starting with the other (northern) end of the beach and ending with the sand martins nests under the cliff edge. I'm glad to say some are still in use and the birds darted around me as I peered in. Nature adapts to catastrophe as always.