Annual Goose Watch

This year's trip to the polders was fitted in around various commitments at home and we were lucky that today was generally dry and sunny.

We stopped to refuel and get a Croque Monsieur for breakfast and a baguette for lunch and then, as a change, and to show Barry a different area, we headed to Fort Grand Phillipe to look for the snow buntings, twite and shorelarks that are often to be found here and had been reported in the last week.

When we first turned up the tide was way out and the marshy area was green,  the only birds we could see were some Reed Buntings, Chaffinches and a Greenfinch. We walked round the bay but there was not much else to see others than a Little Egret and large groups of  plastic decoys in front of the shooting butts.

Walking back to the car we noticed a small flock of birds on the dyke wall which we identified as Rock Pilots and just as we were thinking of leaving another group of birds was seen flying onto the shingle ridge in the distance. Most were too far away for positive identification but some of them were obviously Shorelarks. We decided to hang around and see if the rising tide would bring them nearer.

The tide was coming in rapidly and the marsh began to flood, the birds were more mobile but still distant. A couple of local birders walked out along the dyke and found a flock of Twite feeding along the bank and occasionally hopping up onto the path. We went to walk out closer but half way there we realised that there were 10 Shorelarks feeding just on the beach between us and the edge of the marsh. We stopped and had excellent scope views before trying to photograph them.

The tide had by now completely flooded the marsh area and the birds fed happily across the sand. We spent a bit of time on the beach getting better pictures as the larks foraged, coming quite close at times, before they flitted up and off.