juvenile Purple Sandpiper

with all the beach at Donna to choose from it was a bit of a mystery why this Purple Sand landed within 20 feet of three seawatchers in a gale -- the lean to shot is a true representation of the bird trying to stand up against the blasting south-westerly

Bar-tail and Dunlin

several juvenile waders moving along the tide edge

more Common Terns

having decided to do some more Common Tern counts this evening we arrived to an increasing wind and then had to abandon the count at 19:00 due to severe wind chill and rain (thanks for the prediction MO) -- we logged 4000 Common arriving from the south-east and 7 Blacks before we had to give up when 100's of terns were still pouring in

sand blasted Sanderling

I wondered how they kept feeding while being blasted by the sand in the strong winds but from the photos they seem to keep their eyes almost totally shut

inquisitive seals

Black-necked Grebe

lost for inspiration this am I ended up looking for black terns on the patch -- no terns but I came across this juvenile Black-necked Grebe --the iris colour, bill pattern and faded cheek stripes clearly show it to be a fledged juvenile; a classic time of year for dispersing juvenile grebes

cygnets

Migrant Hawker

it was being shown a perched male Migrant Hawker in october in the mid 1980's that got me into dragonflies -- still one of the most attractive of the large dragons and now very common up here

yellow Willow Warblers

as a novice teenage birdspotter I used to look at these bright yellow Willow Warblers in late August and try to make them into the nice bright yellow Icterine and Melodious Warblers illustrated in my field guide of the day where the Willow Warblers illustrated were never juveniles --- a passing flock on the patch contained at least 10 Willows this morning -- all these photos 500 f4 with 1.4x hand held

Teal

Little Egrets

record numbers locally this month - surely a prospective local breeder in coming years

Little Egrets 2

juv Ruffs and Black-tails

Shovelers

ageing and sexing by iris colour -- only 4 days to the usual 1.9 carnage -- many broods of wildfowl are only half grown when all out warfare starts