High Tide at Two Tree Island

24th August 2025

My first visit of the high tide roost season so straight down to Monty's Look-out to see what was going on. Although it was still four hours before high tide it was surprising just how many birds were already on the lagoon including a few hundred Black-tailed Godwits. I had only just settled in when a curious Wren came to give me the once-over.

At that point some unusual birds flew over, a pair of Canada Geese. Yes of course Canadas are in the area, but in my experience are rarely seen on the lagoon.

Then some of the usual suspects, a couple of juvenile Shelduck. Shelduck seem to have had a very good breeding season as I have seen hundreds of young birds on the Thames.

Here is a Heron chilling out with some of the early Redshanks and Black-tailed Godwits...............

................and then struggling with an eel.

Avocets are the odd one out as they don't seem to leave the lagoon even at high tide, so there is a resident flock of about 50 birds.

Redshank are one of the commonest waders in the Thames estuary. They are never seen in large flocks like the Black-tailed Godwits, but are seen everywhere in smaller numbers.

One or two Knot had been spotted in amongst the Black-tailed Godwits, but I could not find them with just binoculars. It was only when I got home and looked at my photographs that I found some flying in. In this photo could can see seven Knot, three top left, three top centre, and one top right.

And here they are coming in to land.

But the stars of the show today were the Black-tailed Godwits. As I said previously there were a few hundred birds already present when I arrived and some of these were just standing around or feeding.

But then one individual took exception to another individual which seemed to be minding its own business and a fight ensued.

No idea what that was about.

Then the rest of the godwits started to arrive in flocks of up to 100 birds, some doing a couple of laps before landing.

I would conservatively estimate that 1500 godwits were eventually present. Greenshank and Turnstone were also seen, but too far away for a photograph, bringing the total of wader species to six. This will increase as the season progresses.