It’s a couple of hours before high water at Nutbourne and after picking up some bread & apples at the farm shop we were hoping to see the Avocets that were here earlier.
The first surprise was in the farm fields. Instead of ducks there were lots of pigeon milling around the edges of the splashes. What they were doing wasn’t clear, they seemed to be feeding on something, maybe worms had come up as it dried out a bit. I hadn’t seen them here before, it’s a bit unusual. Whatever the reason they seemed to be enjoying themselves in a rather purposeful manner.
The wind came out of the South West as we were expecting a depression later in the day, blowing quite briskly. A pack of wigeon sensibly sat in the wind shadow of the spit extending south of the Bunny, a relatively small group of Brent geese sat our in the wind joined occasionally by others flying in. No Avocets, just a couple of Oyster Catchers accompanied them.
Further down it was clear where they were coming from, a large group were at Prinstead. They seemed to have been agitated by the tide and, in groups were flying off to join the ones by the Bunny. Why they prefer one spot to another wasn’t clear, they were both exposed, maybe they felt safer there. It’s always uplifting to see such big birds flying directly overhead!