High Tide - Not

Wednesday August 14

The Sculthorpe Mill Spotted Flycatchers seem to have fledged and departed, we didn't see any Swifts today either. 'Our' Buzzard fledgling has left the area at last. Two weeks of its constant calling for food has tried our patience. Lovely to start wirh and then a wish for it to stop.

As is now annually expected, a young Green Woodpecker is making its presence known locally. We've seen it in the garden once, ant-hunting in the perennial bed, but it often sounds as though its with us somewhere. We still have House Martins flying around the eaves, there were fewer elsewhere.

We timed our arrival at Snettisham to perfection, over an hour before high tide. But........it was a very low high tide, only 4.39. It needs to be well over 6, preferably 7 for the Spectaculars advertised on TV and various nature programmes. A couple in the rotary Hide asked us where the mass of waders was. We were able to point out that a distant island was actually covered in Knot, Black-tailed Godwit, Redshank and Dunlin, not rocks. The far sandy bank well left of the 'new' hide had 22 roosting Spoonbills.I enjoyed showing them through my scope to a visiting family. They were very keen but didn't have a pair of binoculars between them.

By now, the tide was fully in, the nearest water could be viewed near the end of the tiled walkway past the chalets. Still too distant for me to distinguissh any small waders. There have been up to 5 White-rumped Sandpipers reported here this week.

Terns are always a delight.. Their raucous calls when disturbed into flight, alerted us to a mass loafing on the beach towards the yacht club. A thick line of mixed Common and Sandwich the nearer, a smaller - but still at least 80 strong - line of Little Terns behind them. Again, Black Terns have been seen as has a stranded Long-finned Piolot Whale. I would have loved to have seen the latter whilst delighted that there was no sign of it.

A large number of Barnacle Geese at North Point Pools rounded off the day.


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