Psilos Bird Journal
Sunday March 9th 2008
     
Morecombe bay (page 2)
 
One of my main purposes in going to Morecombe was to photograph the Turnstones feeding on the beach. When I first got there the tide had covered most of the beaches and so they were roosting high. They were also in the company of many Redshank. Redshank are incredibly wary birds. They alarm and fly off at the least little thing usually taking all other bird species with them. S getting close to Turnstones today just wasnt going to happen. A found the Turnstone below feeding in between boulders with plenty of redshanks about but he wasnt going to make it easy for me as he never stood still for a moment.
Turnstone
Out in the bay there was a fair bit of action. One of the biggest surprises were a two male Eider ducks. I have never seen them here before. It was a real treat though it was a pity they never woke up! There was also two Shelducks and two pairs of Red breasted Mergansers but they were too far out even for a record shot.
Eider duck

One of the biggest thrills I got today was watching the waders in flight. Constantly spooked up whilst roosting I spent some time trying to capture them. Never easy as Dunlin and Knot are not very big birds and I wanted all birds to remin in focus as much as possible. Here depth of field and distance are very important.
 
Knot

 
 
 
All in all an enjoyable day. The weather stayed good and the birds were wonderful. But the tide when it turns goes out at a sprint and the birds go out to feed well beyond any cameras reach.