Saturday 14 September 2013

Impressive Numbers












Towards the end of last month I visited a favourite wader roost on the coast near Southport.The high tide was around midday and was over nine metres in height. These high tides push the waders up the beach and make it easier for observation and photography. With a bit of luck there can be large numbers of waders assembled within a reasonable range for some good shots with the camera.
It was a lovely warm and sunny afternoon with little disturbance from passing dog walkers .The birds arrived as hoped for and large flocks came into roost close by.The main constituent of these large flocks were knot,many thousands being present.Also present in impressive numbers were dunlin and sanderling plus ringed plover,grey plover and bar tailed godwits.These large flocks made for some good photography and I was kept busy using two cameras.A large 500mm lens enabled me to isolate sections of the large flocks and a smaller 70-2oomm lens was good for flight shots.
I have shown above a selection from the hundreds of images I took and  hope my readers can get some impression of what I think is one of the most impressive sights along our coastlines.I am looking forward to the next series of high tides when even more waders could be present as they rest and feed along the shoreline. Thanks for looking in and enjoy the weekend.

3 comments:

  1. Fantastic spectacle, well captured.

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  2. You`ve caught some impressive images of these fabulous wader flocks Brian,looking foward to a good winter with these birds.

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  3. Must give Southport a long overdue visit on one of the next high tides, with some excellent illustrations from you of the vast numbers which congregate here....Impressive and excellent Brian.

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