Sand dunes - along the Northumberland Coast

We had promised to talk about how the dunes are created and how they come to be associated with different colours.

Strandline and embryo dunes

Imagine seaweed left stranded at the highest point of the beach. See it drying out and the sparse nutrients leaching into the sandy soil. Eventually some hardy plants will take advantage of this source of nutrients and sea rocket or maybe sea sandwort will start to grow. As these plants expand they will trap and stabilise the sand.

Yellow or white dunes.

Higher up than the strongest tides will reach you have an environment where the sand is still mobile but there is enough nutrient to support marram grass. This gras sbrings improved stability and this allows ragwort, sand sedge, fescues and hawkweed to grow between the clumps of marram grass.

Grey or fixed dunes.

Further back and over time mosses and lichens start to appear and they give this area a grey colour on the sand. And at last we get the Bloody Cranesbill.....the county flower of Northumberland.

Remember that when you are strolling along the beach at Bamburgh that there is much more here than people usually see.