Country diary: There’s a seaweed party going on on the storm beach

‘Choughs, with their matching red beaks and legs, dig deep into the mounds, throwing bits of wrack around to access the rich pickings.’ Photograph: Tim Earl

My British Trust for Ornithology wetland bird survey includes patrolling a storm beach, which, at this time of year, has huge piles of rotting wrack thrown up by the gales. They’re made up of hand-like fronds of laminaria, bladderwrack with its buoyant bubble vesicles, sugar kelp and the long “washing line” strands of non-native sargassum seaweed that arrived from Japan on Pacific oysters and ships’ hulls in recent years.

These slimy, smelly heaps are generally unpopular with passersby – some even call for their removal – but for wildlife they are a food source of the highest quality.