After lunch we made it to Snettisham, and the immense wilderness of the Wash estuary. For as far as the eye can see there is just gloopinous mud. This provides lots of food for wading birds, and they were here in their (at least) tens of thousands.
By the time we got there it was 14:30, which was pretty much at mid tide as high tide was 17:15. We had the intention of looking round the reserve before hopefully hitting high tide, when all the birds would come close to shore in their (we hoped) thousands.
Other than the mudflats the reserve had some gravel pits just behind the sea wall which were extremely popular with the usual ducks. 2 BLACK-NECKED GREBES provided a most satisfactory find.
The geese are unfortunately only greylags
Beyond the furthest lake, behind the shelter a male HEN HARRIER flew in off the sea and quartered the grasslands there for a while before disappearing. I didn't get a picture, but here's what one looks like. The most amazing ghost-like bird and a great find.
Finally after some waiting the tide came in. Unfortunately it wasn't a particularly high tide so not all the mud was covered and the bigger bird flocks, on the water's edge, were still quite distant.
The black birds are mainly oystercatchers
The usual birds were present, DUNLIN, KNOT, BOTH GODWITS, CURLEW, OYSTERCATCHERS, GREY+GOLDEN PLOVERS, TURNSTONE, SHELDUCK, PINTAIL and may more.
This ended a great day with some excellent birds, it was a good experience.
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