High Tide...Wader Spectacular

Last week had seen a succession of 10 metre and 9 metre + tides. These very high tides are always good for watching waders as their normal feeding grounds are covered and they are forced into large roosts to await the falling back of the tide. Under these conditions a visit to the Southport coastline can provide excellent opportunities to get close to various species of wader and obtain some exciting action shots of the comings and goings.
So it proved last week and I made two visits to the Southport sands to locate the large wader roosts. Many of the waders,particularly the knot,had recently returned from their breeding grounds in the High Arctic and were still sporting their breeding plumages and were living up to their name of Red Knot. I had a very enjoyable time and hope I have captured some of the atmosphere and action from this seaside spectacular. Many hundreds of images were taken and I hopefully have weeded out some of the better ones for the blog. I may post some more on my next entry but hope my followers enjoy the ones shown above. The images show mainly Knot performing their aerobatics over the incoming tide and a passing party of oystercatcher and a group of sanderling a few of which are also showing partial breeding plumage.