It's all about timing......and today's was dreadful!

Very heavy morning rain, then mainly overcast with the odd shower. A light south(ish) wind.

The general rule with Knot is that most of their legs are hidden for most of the time. The exception to this rule is when they are coming towards you to land. Howard took this shot at the Near Naze yesterday to get an idea of how many marked birds there were. He has circled the five that had flags, the others do not.

Five marked Knot in a group this size is a good number, but
still only about 1% of them

This is one of yesterday's flagged Knot on the skear. Even when you get a
clear view, there is no guarantee of reading it, this one has its leg tucked in.
If you open it you can just make out a white V at the end of the flag.
This is one of a trial of 100 white coded birds. The trial was discontinued as
they often proved difficult to read. This one remained unread.

South shore today (Malcolm)

A combination of heavy rain and other commitments meant that I had very little time today. Just a short walk from Red Nab to the saltmarsh, and I couldn't have timed it any worse!

Red Nab was already covered when I got there, just a few Oystercatchers,
Curlew and wigeon remained

When I arrived at the saltmarsh it was already half covered, most of the Common Snipe would already have been flushed, but I had to leave before the tide was high enough to flush any Jack Snipe.

Common Snipe 10

Wigeon 180

Reed Bunting 4

No Linnet again

Male Wigeon amongst the saltmarsh 

And that was it for the day!

Just out of the recording area:

Janet reported a large flock (hundreds) of Pink-Footed geese landing in the field by Oxcliffe Rd. When I passed later that field was empty, but a large skein c250 came high from the north and dropped onto one of the fields to the north of the bypass (bay gateway)