Country diary: A stranded traveller that looks more plastic than animal | Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

Appledore, Devon: By-the-wind sailors have been washed up in great numbers this summer. I stumble on a single one of these bright blue beautiesAmid the hot grit of the estuarine beach, a cool light glints. Not the habitual shade of mussel shells, nor even the shimmer of sea glass, this is a blue so bright that at first I mistake it for a kind of plastic, perhaps the discarded part of a pair of goggles. I’m about to pick it up when something prompts me to pause, mid-swoop; an inkling that this is not synthetic, but animal.Looking closer, I see an intricate pattern of concentric circles like a carved inscription on a wave-blue disc. A translucent “sail” rises from the middle. This is the marine hydrozoan, Velella velella. Continue reading...