recent weather and birds images

 Sunday was caught out in an unexpected hail storm but a fine rainbow developed and a few Lapwings obliged; flocks of Dunlin glinted against the black sky; last night the cloud cleared just before sunset and the Golden Plovers sort of obliged - an hour after sunset a Grey Heron did its best to inspire 

Golden Plovers and Lapwings at Read's island

I estimated 25,000 Goldies but that could be low -- impressive sights -- this is a snapshot

a gathering of Golden Plovers

a small part of the 20,000 birds around Read's Island at the weekend; impossible to convey large flocks in single images

Golden Plovers on the Humber

large flocks at the moment with an estimate of 35,000+ in the upper estuary -- a very impressive Golden  carpet around Read's Island on a sunny day -- photos tend not to do the flocks justice

random images from a sunny afternoon

Golden Plovers

the last two days have been about numbers of birds rather than individuals -- getting good shots of flocks is probably harder than portraits of single birds as there is so much more going on and so much more to go wrong and on the web there is not the large image size needed to show a flock at its best

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1cy Golden Plovers

again in the terrible light of a murky and wet east coast