This took around 50 minutes so we kept an eye out for any Barn Owls on the way but no luck,well the weather forecast was wrong yet again with only whispery cloud at the start the day was wall to wall sunshine with a light wind.
On arrival we could straight away see hundreds of mixed waders on the beach mainly consisting of Knot & Redshank,Mandy & myself walked down onto the beach where we could see some nearer Godwits,Turnstone & Redshank,I photographed a Bar-tailed Godwit which had half a leg missing & a few Turnstones but the Redshank were a bit flighty before the dog walkers made an appearance which in turn flushed everything up and emptied the beach :(
We continued to walk down the beach towards the boating lake so I could do some bush beating to see if I could find a late Warbler or something whilst Mandy checked out the boating lake for any Goosander but no luck on either side with me only finding a few Bull & Greenfinch but plenty of Dunnock.
Mandy managed to locate a Pink-footed Goose on the lake so we went round to get a few shots of it along with Tufted Duck & a Common Gull.By this time it was mid morning and with McDonald's over the road we decided it was breakfast time :)
After this we decided on going onto the Salt Marsh & Beach with a flock of around 50+ Linnets flying around I had hoped for some Twite but again luck wasn't on our side,we made it through all the mud & slush onto the beach,which only had a few mixed gulls,Dunlin,Sanderling & Oystercatcher being the most dominating Wader present.The only birds on the Humber were Cormorant so we walked into the small sand dune area and within a few minutes 3 Snow Buntings came and landed just behind us but was unable to get any shots,we went over to the foreshore to photograph the Sanderling which Mandy had never photographed before so was good for her :)
We walked back to the dunes where I found a plank of timber so decided to make a bench for us to sit and have a coffee and watch what would come over with 3 Brent Geese flying south and Sky Larks flying over,
I then noticed another Finch flock of around 30-40 birds thinking it maybe the Linnets again but picked my bins up for a quick nose at them and realised it was a flock of Snow Buntings I thought great another species for Mandy to get better shots of,this proved harder than expected with them only landing for a short periods but we gave it a go which resulted in only distant shots after half hour or so a Sparrowhawk came in low through the dunes causing them to scatter and make off.We continued to search around the area adding Curlew & Little Egret to our day list.
With time pushing on we decided it would be good to walk back up the foreshore back to the pier so off we set but after a short walk,we stumbled across some more Snow Buntings feeding where the tide had come up leaving titbits behind so we moved round to get the sun behind us and moved closer but noticed they were walking towards us so we got down low and let them come to us rather than the other way round and got them reasonably close for a few photos,before flying behind us but light was fading so we made our way back to the town for a well deserved cuppa & food before the train back home.
 |
| Turnstone |
 |
| Pink-footed Goose |
 |
| Tufted Duck |
 |
| Common Gull |
 |
| Moorhen |
 |
| Sanderling |
 |
| Snow Bunting |
 |
| Knot |
