Low Key Birding

Something I neglected to mention in my last post was the unfortunate encounter I had with a slippy rock while coming down from Yes Tor. Short version; my knee tried to bend the wrong way, I was unhappy.

No serious damage, but I'm still getting tweaks whenever it's unamused, so no Moor for me until it stops*.

Not that I'm stopping having fun, oh no. It was, however, a more careful and slow pace at the Nose yesterday morning, where the fresh if not brisk southerly put paid to any chance of more than a few siu-ing Chiffs, and the most interesting thing at sea was this;

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The sun being out, I thought 'Oh whatever' and went up to Bowling Green for a bit after the tide. The light was.. well, there was a lot of it. There were a lot of birds, too, and these included Little Stints and Curlew Sands plural. While both CS were in view together at one point [though in a ruck of Redshank], the stints only showed one at a time. How many there were, exactly, is a matter of opinion and conjecture. I know there were at least two, because one was ringed and one wasn't. But as there were sightings at various points over time, there could have been a half dozen! I reckon two, though.

Bright and windy at the Green

Bird numbers were well up compared to my last visit, with Pintail up from a half dozen to more than 30, and Wigeon.. Well, look up there.. Those dots on the water? [And the shores] Wigeon. 500+**

But getting back to the little jobs. Finding them - and staying on them - was not easy. Dead ground, flushing corvids, and all the various big things in the way;

Spot the stint

There is one in there. Somewhere... While stints were seen at various places, only on the spit were they really photographable [that's relatively speaking, of course..]. So;

It's 'Land of the Giants'...

Startled by Dunlin!

Yup. Little Stints. Ok? Now we have some horribly overcropped exemplars of rings and lack thereof. The light was not helpful in this - as I could barely see the birds through the viewfinder, let alone if legs were visible! - but I think even a cynic will agree we have at least two birds [with and without]. Ok, shield your eyes..

Red ring visible

Yellow and red visible

With Dunlin for comparison

Same - left leg raised and clearly unringed

Ok, that's enough of that.

Some more record shots!

Whimbrel and Barwit

Med Gull

adult

Med Gull

2w

And a few shots more scenic, including after I wandered off in search of the reported Avocets [spoiler alert; I didn't find them] around the rest of the usual sites.

Busy Shovelling

Yeah, perfect viewing conditions

See?

Take one distant Curlew picture,

Get another free!

The solution to all that sunnyshine was of course to turn the back, and use it. Fortunately, not everywhere is designed to annoy the viewer.. [Yup, it's Goose time!]

Bathing beauties

Bashful Beauties

 

There were 30 Greenshank on Goosemoor in all, plus an extremely shy [juv female] Ruff.

Inevitable comparison shot

Quite a confiding Greenshank, this

Lots of fun had by all - at least when the birds deigned to show!


Be Seeing You..







[[*Like the Sunscreen Song says.]]
[[** I counted 537, with plenty of dead ground to hide more - love gull island, btw.....]]