Knot, a decent day.

An overnight frost but not as cold as of late. A dry day with the odd sunny spell, but mainly overcast. A light SE breeze.

South shore (Malcolm)

I managed to get to the shore out from Ocean Edge a couple of hours before high water and walked the tide in (very quickly).

Pink-Footed Goose 680 in three waves of varying sized skeins all heading for their feeding grounds to the north.

Bar-Tailed Godwit 930. These are some coming in.

Knot 450, 7 coded birds were seen but not all close enough to read, but three schemes were involved. 4 from an Icelandic, 1 from a Dutch and 2 from an English.

The sun was just rising, its rays illuminating the Godwits at the back.
But not yet reached the front ones or the Knot feeding on the shore.

Sunrises here are seldom as splendid as the sunsets. But this one made an effort

Other waders feeding away from the shore:

Oystercatcher 100

Curlew 80

Grey Plover 11

There were also Dunlin but they consolidated to feed inshore later.

The incoming tide quickly covered the shore and the Godwits rested near the saltmarsh.

Mainly Bar-Tailed Godwit out from the saltmarsh. Last nights high water
reached the ice line seen here. This side of the line, the mud was still frozen.
Today's tide was higher and was about to cover this last frozen section.

Dunlin 600 - as the tide reached the frozen section above, all the Dunlin began feeding. As yesterday, I suspect they were finding invertebrates that had not survived the freeze and were now being released. You can see the tide lifting the ice from the mud.

Ringed Plover 9

Turnstone 5

Redshank 60

Redshank

Lapwing 72

Lapwing

Rock Pipit 1 on the south side of saltmarsh 

Reed Bunting 7 on saltmarsh 

A quick check of Red Nab

Pale-bellied Brent geese 17

Wigeon 150

Kingfisher not seen today, but it has been around.

This rock at the outlet from the freshwater runoff culvert is one of the 
Kingfisher's favoured spots. The two characteristic defecation streaks
shows that it has been used, at least within the past week.

Redwing in the Nature Park

Janet had a look a little later.

Wigeon

Pale-bellied Brent geese

Carrion Crow about to remove every last morsel from what remains 
of a likely Peregrine kill

Wren in the Nature Park 

And that's it from Janet for a couple of weeks. Off for a well earned break.

Near Naze/heliport (Howard)

Knot c1000 knot estimated when in the air on the approach to the naze, due to the flat calm condition and peak tide height the birds chose to roost on the far end rocks next to the old lighthouse base so reducing positive readings of coded birds.

Even so at least five coded birds identified, again from three schemes, but not including any seen earlier on the south shore.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

This shot and video from Angela Gillon

The open area that had been maintained by the Swans and ducks.

The freeze eased today, unfortunately the surface melt water made the ice more slippery, as the Mute Swans discovered when they headed for the feeding area.