Sanna

Sanna's coastline is a series of bays, each with a wide sand beach, together stretching for over a kilometre from this one, the most southerly, Port na Tuine, to Sanna Burn at the north.

It's midsummer. You would expect Sanna's glorious white beaches to be crowded. We arrived today just after nine and in the next three hours met only two people.

At low tide, as it was today, the sands continue on the north side of the burn, running out towards a small headland on the other side of which....

....lies this secluded bay, a place which is ideal for children, where they can swim in shallow, protected waters, scramble over the rocks, and hunt in the rock pools.

Sanna is a place of peace, a silent place except....

....when the RAF, which only seems to practise its low flying when the weather is fine, comes by.

We spent most of the morning wandering across the land to the north of the Sanna Burn, where....

....today's wildlife highlights included this sandpiper, not in the sea as one might expect but on a rock in the middle of the burn, and....

....this grayling butterfly. They're usually well camouflaged on the rocks which are their preferred resting place but this one chose some lichen to sit on.

There are plenty of orchids still in bloom, including northern marsh, heath spotted, common spotted and, just coming out, the fragrant orchids. This is the last of this season's lesser butterfly orchids.