Seashore

 

1991: Nature Conservation in the Bailiwick (Design Wendy Bramall)

The shingle bank at L'Eree is just over a quarter of a mile long and the best surviving example of a shingle bank on Guernsey. Its bank is occasionally breached at the time of the spring tides and floods the Marais behind.

The shore side of the shingle bank - the stamps depict the birds most likely to be seen as one crunches over the banking. Oyster-catchers, Turnstones, Dunlin, Curlew and lastly Ringed Plover with two chicks. Of course you can't contain the scampering turnstones so they pop up in more than one stamp.

Here we see some of the plants which grow on Shingle Banks. Sea Campion and sea radish with a gull flying overhead (probably about to pinch whatever one is eating on the seashore); Yellow horned poppy; Hare's foot clover and fennel and stonechats are popping up again; more Hare's foot clover, fennel and slender oat which is found nowhere else in the Channel Islands and lastly - Sea kale.

The Shingle Bank is designated a Site of Nature Conservation Interest and sits between other sites with similar designations. Nearly the whole of this area becomes exposed at low tide and it has been described by marine biologists as one of the best sites for the study of sea-shore flora and fauna in the British Isles.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is Se-tenant or selvedge - See It On A Postcard