Waders at Fingringhoe Wick

2nd January 2017

After a fantastic morning at Abberton, time to move on to Fingringhoe Wick. High tide was at 2.30pm, so that gives us 3 hours of incoming tide to hopefully photograph some waders. As usual the incoming tide caused considerable movement amongst the wildfowl particularly the Brent Geese and Shelduck, but a particularly welcome guest today was the female Goosander which took refuge from the river but kept her distance.

As the water crept in and started to cover the mud the number of waders increased, although those that came closer were the usual Redshank, Ringed Plover and Grey Plover.

However, an unexpected bonus was this Kingfisher which flew out to a tree on the mudflats. I am not quite sure what it was expecting to catch in those murky waters.

By now the tide was well in and large numbers of waders were leaving the mud on the river and flying into The Retreat to roost particularly Avocets, Curlews, Knots and Dunlin, and the wheeling flocks of waders were most spectacular.

But the best was yet to come. On my way back to the car I decided to call in to the scrape to see if there were any more waders there. However, as I gently eased open the hide flap, there right in front of me was another cracking Kingfisher, this time much closer. What a fantastic way to end the day.