Lots of Knots

Yesterday I visited the West Lancs Coast at Southport as more high tides this week would mean there may be  more opportunities for photographing waders on what is one of the most important ares of coast in the country for numbers of waders passing through or spending the winter months on these rich feeding areas. It was a breezy and cloudy day and not as good for photography as previous visits had been.
I arrived an hour or so before high water and could see large numbers of waders assembled out on the beach. I approached carefully but the waders , mostly knot, kept on the move. Matters were not helped by two very noisy quad bike type vehicles doing some sort of survey work and scaring the waders away. I did manage some shots before they all dispersed up the beach towards Formby. By now the tide was full and I had to retreat from the advancing water. After lunch I followed the tide out as some of the waders returned to feed on the now exposed sand. I did manage to get within range of the feeding birds and managed some reasonable shots but not as good as I would have liked. This means of course that I will have to return possibly this week when the weather improves . This wader watching is becoming obsessive and it thrills me to think these tiny birds have journeyed thousands of miles from their summer nesting grounds way up in Greenland and Arctic Canada to spend time on the Lancashire coastline. The images are mostly of knot and show just a few of the many thousands of waders currently present on the Southport coastline.