Another clear, bright frosty day and East Head was very crowded with people and dogs. The tide was up when we arrived, so no birds on the foreshore area as we walked around the head. However, Turnstones were, as they so often do, making use of man-made structures at high tide by crowding onto the Spit Head buoy. We could see 17, but there may have been more around the other side. This buoy has a ledge running around it just wide enough for a Turnstone to perch comfortably; others in the vicinity didn't have one. There were about 500 Brent Geese on the car park fields and some Lapwings, a few Oystercatchers and a single Curlew.
 |
| View across to East Head from the Causeway |
After hot soup for lunch we headed up towards Ella Nore as the tide was falling. As we approached Snowshill there was a huge disturbance as a hot-air balloon took off from the car park. Brent Geese, Teal and Wigeon flocks and other birds, including at least one Snipe, hurtled about in all directions. Eventually calm returned and flocks of Dunlin, Grey Plover and a single Bar-tailed Godwit settled to feeding on the mud. From the vicinity of Ella Nore we saw a single Great-Crested Grebe and a flock of nine Red-breasted Mergansers - three male and six redheads - out in the harbour. On the way back a single Little Egret, apparently undisturbed by people passing just above on the causeway, demonstrated his fishing skills in the stream feeding out of Snowshill.
 |
| The tide is out! |
No comments:
Post a Comment