Shellfish around the coasts of the Highlands are an important part of the diet of a number of waders such as oystercatchers and ducks such as eider. Such predation has caused conflict with the commercial interests and the edible cockle is a good example. In parts of Britain the predation by oystercatchers, a single bird will eat 300 cockles in a day, was supposed to have affected the stocks and made commercial gathering a problem. Accordingly licences were issues in the 1970s to kill oystercatchers until the pressure from the conservationists stopped such practices. Eider ducks came under threat for their predation on mussels and when the number of mussel farms increased some of these marine ducks were controlled under special licences.
In the case of the common winkle, common because there are a small number of other species, the numbers never seem to have suffered from commercial gathering. They were and are harvested annually mainly for the continental markets. At one time in Britain they were a regular source of food but still this small shellfish is still one of the commonest and most widespread species. Part of this success is their adaptability of growing not only a wide range of places but coping with seawater. They are, for example, common in rock pools in such places as Rosemarkie on the Black Isle and Tarbatness up the east coast. The cluster in the photograph was taken last week at Tarbatness and they are gathered on the edge of a rock pool waiting for the tide to turn. Rock pools must be one of the most inhospitable place for anything to grow. Daily the pools are subjected to saltwater from the making tides. Then the pools dry out and then may be partly filled by fresh rainwater and still this small mollusc flourishes.
Winkles arc relatively small shellfish growing up to 30m high and are usually dark brown or black in colour although some individuals may vary. The whorls of the tough, conical, pointed shells are finely ridged although the shell in older ones may be smooth. They feed by scraping encrusted seaweeds from rocks and by browsing on dead vegetation. They are sometimes deliberately introduced to oyster beds to keep down unwanted growths. The spiral ridges on the young winkle are more pronounced than that of the adult full grown. At low tide the exposed winkle is held lip uppermost to the sides of boulders by a film of mucus and the dark shell may become bleached by the sun. They are so adaptable they can live in polluted waters such as marinas and in the sea near sewage outfalls.
Shellfish can be purchased at various outlets from shops to seafood specialists in various parts of the Highland. Oysters are the much acclaimed shellfish but there seems to still be a ready market for mussels, some collected from the coast and others from mussel farms Cockles are also readily available and a few places supply the razor-shells. There seems to be no outlet for winkles despite the fact at one time they were eaten by a wide range of people. It is rare to find any being collected these days for personal consumption and very few cookery books give any recipes for them. An exception is “The Edible Seashore” by John Wright in the River Cottage Handbook series 2009. The book mentions that in 1851 some 3,600,000 pints of winkles were sold on the streets of London alone. This is a round 1,620 tons! An idea of just how popular the winkle used to be.