Wader Roost..Fairhaven

Towards the end of the first week of May there were a series of ten metre tides.At this time large numbers of waders were roosting on the shore and marsh out from Lytham on the northern side of the Ribble Estuary.An estimate of around ten thousand birds had been observed and I was anxious to see them before they departed for Arctic breeding grounds.

The numbers had dropped a little on my visit but it was still a spectacular sight and I obtained some nice images of the action which are shown below.The vast majority of the waders were knot and many of them were showing developing summer plumage, when they turn from the winter grey to a lovely brick red colour.It was not easy to get close to the birds as the high tide made access onto the marsh difficult.The weather has also been excellent recently and a few days later most of these birds had departed on their long migrations.

Dunlin,ringed plover,and a few grey plover were also present and the final image shows a group of dunlin waiting for the tide to drop.The following day I visited the southern shore of the Ribble estuary at one of my favourite wader roost sites near Southport.It was very strange to see the vast areas of beach almost deserted.There were a few flocks of mainly dunlin and a few sanderling but they were well scattered. I did obtain some nice dunlin portraits which I may post at a later date.Thanks for looking in and stay tuned for more from my wildlife encounters.