GeoGraph - photograph every grid square

The Beach Car Park

At the end of Beach Road which turns off the Coast Road (A149), leading through the marshes below the village of Salthouse. The car park is full on this sunny Sunday afternoon on the last day of May: the tide is coming in and fishermen have arrived and set up their tents along the shingle beach to see what it will bring > Link.

The view was taken from the shingle ridge, which is one of the locations where the rare Yellow Horned Poppy (Glaucium flavum) - typically growing on bare shingle where it can form large colonies - can be found; the plant is protected under the Wildlife & Countryside Act (1981) and must not be picked without permission from the landowner. Sea poppies flower from mid-May until October but their flowers usually only last one day. After a flower has dropped, a long, curved seed-pod develops (believed to be the longest seed-capsule of any British plant) which eventually splits lengthways to reveal hundreds of small seeds. The plant's leaves are covered with fine hairs which protect it from salt spray.