There seems to be a natural world spectacular for each season. Autumn is all about the Starling Murmurations, winter brings in Waxwings and huge skeins of geese, summer heralds long hot days (we hope!) and dragonflies hawking insects at the edges of our ponds. Spring brings in some of the highest tides of the year, so now is a good time to head down to a wetland near you. I did just that last week.
What makes high tide worth the effort to get up early and see? The answer is quite logical really. Waders like to feed on the water’s edge or a retreating tide to try and feast on anything that gets trapped on the surface. As the tide pushes towards the shore you can get some really good views of them doing this, and get to watch them in their natural environment much closer than you normally would. If you choose your location well and the reserve has a lagoon or lake you can be in for a real treat. Eventually they run out of room on the shore to all fit and have no choice but to find somewhere to roost and wait for the tide to recede. You may be lucky enough to witness thousands of wading birds flying from shore to lagoon and all jostling for position.
I did my spot of high tide watching at Freiston Shore at half past seven in the morning. The same scene gets played out all along the Welsh coast at this time of year. You will need to check the local tidal times, which can be done by a quick search online.
So what did I see?
By the time I arrived the Oystercatchers had already made it on to the lagoon. There were easily five hundred plus huddled together. The next to fly over the sea wall was a small flock of Dunlin, numbering a couple of hundred. They had no time to settle, as the local Peregrine Falcon which nests on the Boston Stump flew into the middle of them trying to get a meal. A very short skirmish developed with the birds desperately cartwheeling around to avoid capture. A small group of a dozen Avocets were the next to arrive. These iconic birds are fantastic to watch in flight, their black and white under wings really dazzled the eye as the caught the early morning sunlight. There were a surprisingly small number of Redshank and Curlew around, but there is another lagoon at Freiston and maybe they chose that area to roost. Suddenly I spotted a movement on the banking of one the scrapes on the lagoon. Almost perfectly camouflaged against the mud were a couple of Ringed Plover. This was quite an exciting spot for me, as I had only ever seen its smaller cousin the Little Ringed Plover before. The quickest way to tell the two apart, other than the slight size difference, is to look at their eyes. The Little Ring Plover has a distinct eye ring; whereas the Ringed Plover does not. Proving it always worth checking what flies in with the more common waders, a single male Ruff had joined the noisy throng. It seemed to be moulting into its summer plumage, which would have made it much easier to identify, as the male looks, well slightly ridiculous to be honest. If any of you can remember Lord Percy from Blackadder II you will get the idea!
A final wander around the sea wall before I went home for a hot mug of tea and some breakfast yielded another nice year tick for me in the shape of a Water Pipit. An archetypical “little brown job” is identified from the more common Meadow Pipit by its more distinct eye stripe. It may well have been stocking up from the bounty the high tide provided before heading back to central Europe for the summer.
I can heartily recommend you make the effort for an early start over the coming weeks and visit your local wetlands and see what the tide drags in. Both Newport Wetlands and RSPB Conwy have good numbers of waders at this time of year, Redshank, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Black Tailed Godwits, Dunlin and Knot always gather in large numbers at the estuaries of both these reserves and are displaced by the tides. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve of Llanelli Wetlands can be another excellent place to watch the tide come in. Check with the reserves at what time the high Spring Tides occur and remember the more exceptionally high the tide, the more the dramatic effect it will have on those waders using the shoreline.
Best of luck and good bird watching!
All Images © Anthony Walton