Tuesday 18 February 2020

Kessingland shore pool birds

On Tuesday 18th February, at Kessingland North beach, I wanted to take some scenery shots for my forthcoming talk on Friday 3rd April at 7.15pm at St. Marks Church, Oulton Broad (all visitors welcome!) for the Lowestoft RSPB, but I could see immediately that the shore pool had increased in size dramatically and walking around I saw the 8 Sanderling along the west side and then 3 Ringed Plovers around the east side. I could hear Snow Bunting calling and 5 Snow Buntings flew in including 2 smart males, one was very white. Another Lark call heralded the arrival of the wonderful Shore Lark flew in and started feeding along the tideline just east of the northern section of pool. I was joined by 2 other birders and we waited to see if they would come to us. The Snow Buntings approached to within 50 feet as did the Shore Lark but they suddenly flew further along the beach (we hadn't moved) but they did come back and the Shore Lark flew back a little (we hadn't encroached on these birds one bit). The Shore Lark then sat down in the sand, a digiscoper arrived and we put him onto the bird and promptly left. It was refreshing to be asked by a lady dog walker, what bird I had seen, and when I explained she kindly called her dogs back so that they wouldn't disturb the Shore Lark. As I was walking back past the field just south of Heathlands, a lady said she had seen 5 "Snow Buntings" fly in and I walked along and saw 5 fine Sanderlings by the puddle, I explained to the lady the correct ID of the birds. A look around Lake Lothing from the railway bridge revealed an Oystercatcher by the shore edge and a Cormorant on a post but not the hoped for Shag.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I was the digiscoper you kindly put onto the bird. I didn't have time to say thank you. Cheers Jon

Peter Ransome said...

My pleasure Jon, I'm glad you saw it and you probably got some nice pics too.