A Day at Frampton Marsh

31st August 2022

The area around the car park and visitor centre was fairly quiet today probably not helped by the building work so let's go straight to the 360 hide where the Little Stints and Pectoral Sandpiper have been seen. Along the track to the hide there is a simple but very effective viewing mound where Little Ringed Plover, Dunlin and a few Curlew Sandpipers were on show. The Little Ringed Plover and Dunlin were adults, but the Curlew Sandpipers all seemed to be juveniles.

Here are a couple of shots showing both Curlew Sandpipers and Dunlin for a comparison.

Now on to the 360 Hide and both the Pectoral Sandpiper and Little Stints were present but both extremely distant so no photos. In fact the large group of waders feeding quite close a couple of weeks ago had disappeared and the only bird on show was a juvenile Avocet, although it did perform rather well.

A quick visit to the Reedbed Hide didn't add anything new apart from a Pink-footed Goose which shouldn't be here at this time of year. However, I did find out that three birds had over-summered so perhaps injured and unable to fly back to their breeding grounds.

Then just as we were about to leave a Snipe emerged from the reeds just below us and started to feed. At first it was too close and partially hidden by the reeds but after a while moved away from the reeds and allowed some shots to be taken in the open. How good is that?

Along the sea wall a lone Meadow Pipit and Wheatear were feeding at the bottom of the bank.

But at this time of year it is generally worth checking out the cattle as they usually have 20+ Yellow Wagtails making the most of the insects they disturb as they walk through the grass. Today was no exception and the next half hour was spent trying to get a few shots as they briefly emerged from the long grass.

Now into the East Hide and the Black-tailed Godwits were starting to leave the reserve and fly out to The Wash now that high tide had passed.

A few lingered near the hide providing some great opportunities and even some incoming flight shots.

A single juvenile Ringed Plover was feeding along the muddy margins but unfortunately never went past the hide.

However, one bird that did go past the front of the hide several times was a Ruff providing some great opportunities for some close-ups.

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?