A Day on the Beach at Walton-on-the-Naze

19th June 2024

Today's objective was to walk along the beach and hopefully photograph the Sandwich and Little Terns which are often seen there, but today the sea was very choppy so the terns were probably feeding over a more sheltered Hamford Water as we only saw four Sandwich Terns flying over quite high. Therefore more time to photograph the waders.

Turnstones are very common here in winter, but you can rely on half a dozen still lingering during the summer months.

On the way up to Stone Point there were two pairs of Oystercatchers which were keeping an eye on us................

..................and letting us know of their presence as we passed their territory.

There are 50-100 Ringed Plovers on the beach during the winter months, and some stay for the summer to breed.

Redshanks are normally found here on the saltmarsh behind the beach, feeding during the winter and breeding during the summer. However they were still close enough to take to the air to protect their territory, after all their old English name is Warden of the Marshes.

But the biggest surprise today was the discovery of a single Knot. It looked like a young bird with some juvenile feathers still showing, so probably a second calendar year bird (2CY). Apparently they do often over-summer.

So far so good but the main challenge today was to photograph a singing Sky Lark which I have tried before with mixed success, but today I have a little more time to spare, so here goes

Amazing to have a 1-mile stretch of beach on a sunny day in June all to ourselves!!!