Eggs Canoes and Toads.

These were the eggs we nearly stepped on as we dragged our canoe up the shore at the weekend. The idea was a good one. We had been invited for drinks in the garden of some friends living near the head of the loch. We set off full of enthusiasm and were doing really well until we ran out of water and were left sitting high and dry. The tide was going out and in our haste for drinks on the patio we had forgotten! Mrs Sandpiper must have fled her nest in horror as we lumbered up the beach dragging a seventeen foot Canadian canoe behind us. How we didn't trample on her eggs I'll never know. We abandoned the canoe on the shore, clambered up the bank and continued the rest of the journey on foot.
The following morning we went back to the shore to retrieve the canoe. I narrowly missed stepping  on this little crab lazing on a rock in the sun. On closer inspection it was just his shell. Mrs Sandpiper, no doubt on the lookout for large lumbering humans lugging canoes, must have heard us coming. I caught her disappearing into the undergrowth, muttering I expect. The amazing thing about the eggs was once you took your eyes off them you couldn't see them any more. They were perfectly camouflaged. We left Mum and eggs and crept as quietly as we could away from her home (which is  difficult  when carrying a large canoe) down to the waters edge.
We paddled home. The water was crystal clear. The jetty at the bottom of the garden is in need of some repair! On the way back up the garden I nearly stepped on a toad, and congratulated myself on my newly acquired skill of not trampling all over wildlife!