Distance and displacement at Burnham Overy Staithe

These Shelduck were making interesting tracks in the mud, crossing backwards and forwards over the places they had already walked. They had walked quite a long way but hadn't ended up far from where they started. Distance is a scalar quantity and is the actual length they have walked. Displacement is a vector and is just the distance measured in a straight line from the start point, with direction from the start given.