Waders at Channel View

 August is a great month for the waders to start to move South so, this morning, I took myself down to the seawall to have a look.


We don't get big numbers but the birds can be relatively relaxed, especially after high tide and sometimes allow me to get close enough to get pictures with my bridge camera. Typically this also enables me to be pretty certain that no rarities are hiding among them.


A drawback of having the world's second largest tides is that low tides mean waders are often too far away to actually see;  let alone check.


A typical group of Ringed Plovers and Dunlin on the seawall


Today, these happened to include a Sanderling, which is pretty uncommon here


Later many of them hid in the grass and rocks inside the path


For good measure today I got close to the Sanderling


and a young Dunlin was more obliging than usual too




Whilst trying to get a picture of the flock in flight I noticed two Knot among them,



For once I was happy with my flight pictures which try to capture some of the feel of these birds whirling across the sea, rather than being typical portraits




Despite a lot of effort I was completely unable to find either the Golden Plover or the Curlew Sandpiper reported by other birders today.


On the seawall bank there were several Wheatears and my first Winchat of the year so more and more signs of autumn.


In the meantime another storm is coming so I am off for a sea watch. After my seasickness experience three weeks back I am sticking to dry land. My watch last week was very good with decent views of 5 species of Shearwater, a juvenile Long-tailed Skua and an Arctic skua but all too far off to photograph. Too far also were the Storm Petrels and Grey Phalaropes (2 of each) that passed Ladye Bay two days later in continuing gales.


The only pics I got during my 12 hours on a rock at Lizard Point were these obliging Choughs



I have never seen ones that looked so supercilious before. 


My favourite spot on the Lizard has been affected by a lot of spray this week so tomorrow I plan to join the, well spaced, crowds at Pendeen in my never ending quest for a British Feas Petrel.



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