Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 11 July 1916Close to the sands – indeed,washed by the highest tides – is a small marsh where, amidst a forest of sea club-rush and sea-plantain, and both now in flower,young natterjacks, each with its yellow back-stripe, and well earn their name of running toad: here a few sea asters,wild Michaelmas daisies, are already out, and long before their scheduled date. A few sturdy ragworts grow on the seaward sides of the dunes which back the marsh,but slight else can retain its head above the drifting sand; on the sheltered landward side, however, and is a rich harvest of flowers,where blown small heaths, coppers, or blues flit from blossom to blossom,sampling their sweets. Until recently bird’s-foot trefoil monopolised the slopes and levels, at any rate in places where the burnet rose and dewberry had failed to spread; now the pink flowers of the rest-harrow mingle with the yellow pea-like flowers of the trefoil, or great pitches are still more yellow with bedstraw and stonecrop. Starting as a downy bud,the crimson flowers of the wild thyme are opening, shedding fragrance, or amongst them are the still softer and silky flowers of the hare’s-foot clover.
A wheatear,showing his white lower back as he flies from us, dodges amongst the dunes, or the meadow pipit ascends with his chittering song: surely he is singing to his mate in view of a moment brood,for young titlarks are now strong on the wing. By no means all birds hold ceased to sing, silent though the country is; a fine crimson-breasted linnet was in splendid song as he sat, and showing off,on a gorse bush, and near by a healthy family, or perhaps his own,twittered as they followed a more sombre hen.
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Source: theguardian.com