Summer's last Hurrah

Bank Holiday Monday and I sit with my coffee in an East Coast town. An old boy pauses to speed smoke, sending out wafts of grey smog as he stares intently at the Vape shop opposite. A waitress in a fresh apron hurry’s by. The air is warming up, its going to be a sweaty one. My coffee has gone time to finish the dog walk. 

In the cliff top gardens there is a collection of fantastic beasts masquerading as windmills. Beyond them The Wash England's wildest place it's alive with fantastic beasts you just need to look. 

The morning expands and we head for the Kayak man's stall on the prom to rent a couple of boats for a paddle.

Summers last Hurrah on The Wash, a flat Sea merging into a clear pastel blue sky. In front of us a new pink outcrop pokes out into the sea as hordes of beach goers edge into the cool waters. My boys and I paddle on into summers end. 

My small east coast town faces west into the sunset, a chilled end of Bank Holiday crowds gather to watch the sun slide into the waters of The Wash with barely a ripple as a late water skier rips through the sea and Oystercatchers pipe in the twilight. Nature soothes the throng. 

Back in my street neighbours discuss the day, its been busy, all along the coast car parks have been full and everywhere cars have been abandoned blocking roads as day trippers like Eels heading for the Sargasso sea show an unstoppable desire to migrate to the soothing waters of the North Sea.

Beach Life

Sitting on the edge of The Wash at Snettisham as the sun starts to drop down the western horizon and offshore children enjoy a summer sail in the Sailing Clubs Toppers, I am reminded what a wonderful place this is for people to come and relax. Parents are scattered along the beach chilling as their kids are taught to sail. In the distance I can see a large family group walking along the tide line occasionally skimming stones and throwing a stick for the family dog. A older couple walk past hand in hand with cameras round their necks in search of a sunset shot to share on social media. Everyone seems happy and contented in using this special place for quiet recreation and sharing it with others. 

Adult Ringed Plover on guard duty, Snettisham

Yet I am on tenterhooks, I have noticed on the shingle ridge to my left a young Ringed Plover, almost fully grown but not yet able to fly. It has wandered out of the section of beach that the Warden has roped off to protect ground nesting birds like Ringed Plovers and Oystercatchers. Out here on the open beach, it can do under the watchful eyes of its parents what Ringed Plovers have always done, search for its food of small invertebrates amongst the seaweed and shells on the tide line. I'm worried because whilst it can run it can't fly and as I watch it and its two siblings I see a dog coming towards, us its presence even outside the fenced area enough to send two anxious adult Oystercatchers into the air noisily trying to distract the potential predator from their nest. 

Nearly fledged Ringed Plover chick, Snettisham

And this is the challenge that birds like these face, perfectly adapted for nesting on exposed beaches where the land edges into the sea, they are struggling to cope with increased human use of our coastline. Add in the effects of climate change meaning increased flooding in the breeding season and coastal erosion of their nest sites and the population of Ringed Plovers in Norfolk has nosedived by about 80% in recent decades. Suddenly this small trio of baby "Ringo's" are of much more importance. 

Adult Ringed plover and two well grown chicks, Snettisham

I stop and chat with the dogs owner who has got it on a lead and knows all about the Ringed Plovers and shares my concern for them. We have a pleasant conversation and then they continue on their way and I go back to dividing my attention between the Ringed Plovers and my son sailing lesson. 

Children learning to sail [and fall in], Snettisham

Sunset snaps

I live in Hunstanton and regularly see people taking pictures of the sunset over The Wash cameras, phones and tablets held in front of their faces in supplication and I suspect 99% of the time capturing the same snap shot of a ball of fire descending into the sea.

I am occasionally tempted to take a picture like this and below is one that I think works due to the very simplicity and symmetry of the composition.

Wash sunset

But I like to try and get something a little more interesting and a few evenings back I went for a walk at dusk along Hunstanton Beach with my binoculars and little compact camera [a Panasonic Lumix TZ30], as much to stretch my legs and back as anything and with perhaps a vague hope of hearing and maybe seeing a newly arrived Sandwich Tern offshore.

As I filled the void left by the completely absent terns I played with my camera wondering how to make the setting sun part of a more interesting composition than just the cliched ball of fire setting into the sea. And then I saw this family strung out in a line and trudging homewards. I liked the fact there were three of them and how at the end of the day Dad was leading the way and followed by mum and child with their tired heads bowed, or at least that's what I read into the picture. Also liked the simple composition with lines of colour. And yes I know that the horizon isn't quite straight.

Home from the beach

Gulls - Large & Small

Immature Herring Gulls, The Wash, Hunstanton

A pattern is beginning to slowly emerge, the kids are still both demanding and rewarding, but as no2 son heads towards his second birthday small windows of time are more regularly coming my way and I am choosing to spend them below the cliffs at the end of our road in Hunstanton. I say "choosing" in some ways I am lucky that the nearest open space to our home is a stretch on beach facing onto the Wash, doubly lucky as I don't really have the time yet to travel further afield.

And so I sense that I have re calibrated my expectations has to what is a good or interesting sighting, in one sense this reminds me of patch watching in London in the 80's when what constituted a rarity was defined by its status in north London. So too now I am taking pleasure from the birds I am managing to winkle out on my short visits to the base of the cliffs.

Today having persuaded no1 son [age 4] to join me I had 40 minutes mid afternoon under the cliffs just as the tide dropped. A large flock of young Herring Gulls hung in the air below the sea wall looking to snatch starfish that had been swept onto the shore by the receding tide. Offshore a steady passage of immature Gannets headed for the mouth of the Wash and I think I saw 30+, a few Turnstones, Oystercatchers and Bar Tailed Godwits flew past low over the choppy waves and a trio of Red Breasted Mergansers. But my best bird was a stunning winter plumaged adult Little Gull, wonderful dark underwings and white trailing edges. I got a lot of satisfaction for picking this small gull out as it flew by low over the grey sea.

Things to do with Wood Pigeons



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Seeing the extraordinary in the day to day and common place is something that as I get older I think I am becoming better at doing. This is driven I think by two factors, firstly as I get older I think the sum of my life experiences means that how I see the world is perhaps more nuanced than when I was younger. Secondly and perhaps more importantly I am more restricted now in what I can and can't do by the demands of a young family and full on job, all of which means that I now need to get my birding and photographic kicks much more locally and in much smaller windows of time.
The picture at the top of this blog is an old one of a Wood Pigeon taken a few years ago on a day when I had plenty of time and was wending my way along the north Norfolk coast. I took it with a DSLR and a big lens and very nice it is too. But it wasn't the highlight of my day and I didn't set out with this image in mind, I saw it, I grabbed it, and I moved on.

The next image is the first of three that I want to share with you that show how I have adapted what I do and perhaps in the process become more creative and thoughtful about my photography and birding and perhaps as a consequence I am also producing more interesting images. Taken just after the sun had dipped below the horizon, it is of a Wood Pigeon perched on a post, on top of Hunstanton Cliffss looking across The Wash towards Lincolnshire. I live five minutes walk from this location and I'll often take a 20 minute evening stroll along the cliff tops and see visitors taking pictures of some spectacular sunsets.  But for me on there own most sunset images of sky and sea lack a certain something, a something that this Wood Pigeon image has a little of which is to mind a story and some structure and form.

Both this next image and the ones above and below were taken with a rather nice little digital compact camera a Panasonic Lumix TZ30, my digital notebook, a camera I can have with me at all times and whilst not in the same league as a DSLR a piece of kit that does give me a reasonable amount of control and creative options. What I was looking for here was to develop the use of a bird perched up against the sunset or twilight sky. I had thought I might manage to get a Blackbird, Dunnock or Whitethroat singing and silhoutted in the dusk but on this occasion they didn't play ball. But this Wood Pigeon did.

And this is probably my favourite image of the many that I shot in a ten minute period that evening. I have some where the Pigeon is well exposed but the sunset is then over exposed and a silvery burnt out nothingness. For this image I under exposed to silhouette the bird and used the cameras Sunset fucntion to give it a bit of orange boost. The result I think is quite a dynamic shot which on my Flickr page I christened Wood Pigeon of the Apolcalypse.

Wood pigeons are not in that top drawer of wildlife subjects that get people like me excited, Red Squirrels and Otters for example, but they are common place, and often tame and that means despite the fact that they are wild birds you can start to be creative with them and make images that stand out a little from the crowd.

Amphibious Redwing

Wonderful calm day last autumn on a fishing charter out in The Wash, lots of vis mig. This Redwing landed on the surface of The Wash to the side of the boat and appeared doomed before to my amazement it pulled itself back into the air and landed on the boats safety railing.