Dark, threatening rain and windy almost to the point of galeforce we arrived early afternoon to see a very rough sea and hardly a bird in sight. For a while we parked next to the water and just sat in the warm comfort of the car and watched for bird movement from the car. Apart from a few small flocks of Turnstone flying low over the water far off the wind had grounded everything. On a nearby ramp to the marine lake three Turnstones were tenaciously looking for food. When faced with the prospect of taking bad photographs or taking none at all I would always try for the first option and so braving the elements we went to photograph the Turnstones.

Back to the car for coffee to warm our freezing hands and almost immediatly another bird appeared close by on the Marine lake. Its small size almost instinctively made me think Shag. It wasnt until later I got a confirmed identification. One good tip though was that the shags eye is surrounded by feathers whereas the cormorant has yellow skin. This was a great bird to see for us as I have never seen one away from a breeding site before. This bird gave some brilliantly close views but with the high waves of the incoming tides we could not do this bird justice.

Out of approximatly one hundred birds there were three Dunlin. Of all the dry rock to sit on he seemed to prefer sleeping in a puddle. Next to the other birds it is amazing how small they seem.

Not many birds in the roost today and certainly no Knot but I guess it must vary from day to day and because of the wind maybe other birds had gone to find somewhere more sheltered to roost. Kirby was a facinating place and I would imagine in calmer weather does produce some interesting birds. I guess I will just have to go back another time to find out...