Why do so many golf balls end up at Cartway Cove?
A local sea kayaking guide group thinks it has the answer!
We may have the answer to the mystery of why so many golf balls have ended up on a Cornish cove that you can only access by sea.
Local sea kayaking guides Cornish Rock Tors say Cartway Cove collects the usual assortment of marine debris like plastic bottles, bits of fishing gear or the odd tennis ball lost by a dog on the beach - but they've been finding increasing numbers of golf balls there too.
But after looking into the issue, they think they've found the answer - it's the gulls!
They say the high cliffs along this stretch of coast are home to hundreds of nesting sea birds, with herring gulls and black back gulls nesting on the cliffs above Cartway, though.
Cornish Rock Tors have told us, "We believe that when these scavengers fly off inland in search of food they’re taking golf balls from the golf courses and driving ranges at nearby St Kew, The Point at Polzeath, and perhaps even St Enodoc at Rock, believing that they’re bird eggs.
"Those golf courses are all within 5 miles of Port Gaverne, which is within the normal radius that a herring gull will fly in search of food.
"They bring the golf balls back to their nests on the cliffs above Cartway to feed to their chicks and when they realise that they can’t crack them open and eat them (because they’re not eggs!) they’re dropping them into the sea and onto the rocky foreshore below.
"That’s why, as well as the usual bits of litter washed up along the high tide line and bits of fishing net snagged on the rocks, we find these bright white golf balls in the rock pools or amongst the rocks and pebbles."
And so a Cornish mystery appears to be solved - it's all down to the gulls!