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Neil said his sister's house was on the edge of an area of coastal meadow called machair next to the sea.

Mrs MacSween lost the ring while gathering potatoes on Liniclate Machair, an area of sandy coastal meadow in the late 1960s.

Rising sea levels and powerful storms are eroding the dunes and machair land that protects many low-lying communities.

The machair, the great grass carpet that covers almost everything, has cowslips, primroses and wild hyacinths pushing up at the spring sun.

“We have a rare example of habitat enhanced by human intervention,” said Stewart Angus, an ecologist with Scottish Natural Heritage and machair expert.