Christine's walking & birds blog

Four black-tailed godwits and four redshanks flew over and alighted near the river, where the godwits promptly went to sleep. A reddish knot (far left) was with them. The shot is a distant one as it's impossible to approach birds on the open beach without disturbing them; and it now began to drizzle with rain.


Later, seven or eight knot were seen together. There were also about ten curlews. Twenty or so oystercatchers were close together near the sea. There was a man with a gun stalking something in the dunes - rabbits, I hope.

At Badentarbat, shoals of fish had come close to shore and were breaking the surface of the water, some jumping out. A great black-backed gull dipped its head in and caught one; but the bonxies didn't seem to be having much luck. Often they would land on the water only to find that the shoal had moved elsewhere; and in the end they flew off, bad-temperedly having a go at all the gulls as they went.


A glaucous gull flew over.  A juvenile black guillemot, a shag, and three red-throated divers were on the sea, and two black-throated divers landed and proceeded to fish - their summer plumage still quite stunning.