Day 3 Salt Marsh

Woke up to a dull cloudy morning so headed first to the salt marshes to see what was around ......

Avocets were there in reasonable numbers ........,       

a communal nest dig was going on   !!! 

those curved bills looked perfect for the job  !!

Little egrets were around too but most birds were too distant for decent photo ops

Not sure what this duck is  !    

Black-headed Gull chicks

and surprise surprise ....................    a long way away but nice to see through binoculars   !!  ...................  can you recognise the white bird ?  ! 

No doubting that bill  !!               great hair style too :)   !!

despite having to hard crop this photo it was nice to have a record shot of the Spoonbill  

  • Nice to see a good number of Avocets Hazel, have they bred there this year ? The salt marshes were always my favourite spot on visits up there
  • Wendy S said:
    Nice to see a good number of Avocets Hazel, have they bred there this year ?

    Hi Pete,  yes they did breed but sadly I was told their offspring have been heavily predated this year and only saw 1 chick there today.    

  • Interesting that and a great shame. We are lucky in that our two local breeding sites have been very successful and we were watching 7 young from three nests this afternoon who were almost the size of their parents
  • The duck I think is a female wigeon. And the white bird in the photo is also a spoonbill. Great photos by the way!!
  • Many thanks all and also for the ID on the Wigeon, much appreciated.
  • Lovely selection of shots, Hazel.
  • Oooh more, lovely Hazy, love that Spoonbill.
  • It may have been a grey day, but definitely not grey photos Hazel, nice to see the avocets, and a spoonbill as well.

    I guess it won't be long now before the avocets fly off, which reminds me, I'm stalking the weather pages at the moment, I understand Burton Mere has bittern youngsters.

  • Looks like it's been a good few days, Hazel, despite not being "blazing June"!! Some lovely captures, and I bet it felt great to be relatively free of the shackles!
  • Thanks folks,

    @ Mike.....    Interesting to hear about the Bittern offspring at Burton Mere and hope you get back soon as its always a lovely place to visit;       Just returned ffrom LM where I think I spotted a newly fledged Marsh Harrier this morning joining its sibling which fledged three days ago.         

    Hoping to get back to BM soon but next week we're a bit busy with Mike's hosptial check up and taking delivery of our new car next week so I'll be having to get used to automatic rather than manual and hoping I don't back up into a neighbours Rolls Royce in the next parking bay to ours in the communal garage   LOL       I'll have a bit of a practice run in the large office car park first  !!          

    @ PB,   Fingers crossed for some good birding weather soon and yes it felt wonderful to regain some form of normality although it did feel very different and the robins have got out of the habit of being had fed by humans  !      did get one brave robin but they were unsuaully few and far between along with the other birds having had to fend for themselves for over a year.