Seymour Birdies Diary: Waders at East Mersea

5th February 2022

After a successful morning at Abberton, time to move on to East Mersea for some waders. The walk along the sea wall was quite eventful with large flocks of grunting Brent Geese and whistling Wigeon feeding in the meadows behind the borrow-dyke, and a few Shoveler flying in to roost.

Along the sea wall a pair of Stonechats were always a few steps before us but only the male posed for a couple of photographs while keeping an eye on the male Kestrel hovering overhead.

The strategy today was to select a suitable place on an incoming tide and let the birds come to you, at least that was the theory, and while we were waiting enjoy the spectacle of CK21 tacking backwards and forwards on Brightlingsea Reach.

CK21 is a 47 feet Essex smack called Maria built by Harris Bros at Rowhedge just a couple of miles from here in 1866 for a Mr Gunn at Wivenhoe. She fell into disrepair and re-furbished on a couple of occasions and is now owned by the Tall Ship Restoration Company and is available for charter out of Brightlingsea. Anyway, I digress.

The tide was now creeping towards us and bringing a few hundred waders with it. First on the scene was a veritable army of Dunlin, scurrying around to feed up before the mud was covered for several hours.

Then at the appropriate time they all lifted to fly to their high tide roost.

The Ringed Plovers seemed to have eaten earlier and were content to just sit around waiting for the tide to come in.

Along the shingle bank the ever-present Turnstones were feeding away but no worry here about their food source disappearing

Similarly for those smart little birds the Sanderlings that are quite happy to run past you if you are in the way.

Curlews has a different tactic and fly straight in to their roost from their feeding grounds out in the estuary without visiting the bay.

Here some Grey Plovers are interspersed with a pair of Shelduck which are present here in quite good numbers.

Here the drake is enjoying a Grey Plover escort.

Although not particularly conspicuous there are a reasonable number of Knot around and tend to associate with the Grey Plovers as can be seen in some of the photos below.