A seesaw day

A strong west wind with very heavy showers till mid morning. Then the wind shifted NW and the sun came out! Heavy showers again by evening.

South shore - Malcolm 09:30 - 11:15

I set off in heavy rain and wouldn't have believed that I would be walking back in bright sunshine!

Lesser Black-Backed, Great Black-Backed and Black-Headed gull 
in the lee of the foreshore 

Lesser Black-Backed (left) and Great Black Backed gulls

Wigeon 42 flew from Red Nab, later there were 32 on the saltmarsh 

Some of the Wigeon about to leave Red Nab

Wigeon

These two are later on the saltmarsh when the sun was out

Shelduck 1 south

1st calendar year Common Gull (top) and 1st calendar year Black-Headed Gull

Mediterranean Gull 1 1st calendar year feeding on No.1 outfall

1cy Mediterranean Gull, it has a very pale mask

It wasn't easy standing still in the blustery wind, but it was relatively easy tracking the gulls, as although they were doing a lot of flying against the wind, they weren't actually moving very far! This is the Mediterranean Gull.

On the way back the tide was full and at 9.2m covered most of the saltmarsh. So I walked around the edge.

Common Snipe 10 lifted and left towards Middleton Nature Reserve. I expect more would have left before I arrived 

Jack Snipe 3 lifted and resettled back in the marsh fringes. Good views, but too quick for me to get a shot today 

Linnet 150

Linnet

Greenfinch 8

Reed Bunting 3

There have been Harlequin Ladybirds along this fence leading to Ocean Edge
all summer. You can see there are still several on every post

Harlequin Ladybirds