lots and lots of waders!

Today we went to Spurn for some waders.

When we were driving down the road to get to a few of the hides there was a Stoat which ran half way across the road then back into the side, it was fantastic watching as he came out a few more times plus I hadn't seen a stoat for ages also several Kestrels were hunting over the fields which was fantastic to watch as they kept going down to go and catch something plus occasionally they sat on the lines eating whatever they caught.

Kestrel

 

When we reached the first hide there was nothing on the scrapes until we saw a bunch of waders fly over the sea and they looked like they were heading for the next hide so we decided to look in there. As we walked in we couldn't believe it! there was Thousands of waders on the scrapes, there was about 5000 Knot maybe more! 3000 Dunlin, 300 bar tailed godwits, Turnstones, oystercatchers, 50 Grey plover, 10 Golden plover, 10 Curlew, 2 Whimbrel, 200 sanderling and some ringed plovers also there was around about 100 sandwich terns flying around.

Grey Plover

Knot

Turnstone

Sandwich tern

 

While we were watching them another kestrel came in front of the hide quite a few times also lots more waders kept flying in to join the roost. We had been in the hide about an hour so we decided to leave and go to another part of the reserve. We decided to walk on the beach for a bit to see if any waders were along the edge of it, While we were walking down the beach a curlew and quite a few Common Gulls flew past. As we were walking back down the beach a sanderling came into land on the beach but he flew away almost straight away and then a common gull came into land which stayed much longer than the sanderling, as we were walking up the hill to leave the beach 3 ringed plover came into land there was 2 adults and 1 Juvenile.

Common gull

 

After we decided to have a quick look in Kilnsea before we had to go home because it was a long drive back 1hr and 30mins, on the way as we drove past the sea there was a few scrapes with waders on them I could just make out a few dunlin, ringed plover and sanderling. When we arrived at Kilnsea we started walking down to the hide, on the way there was lots of butterflies and moths on the flowers also there was quite a few little egrets flying over our heads. When we got to the hide there was a few little egrets feeding at the back of the lake also there was about 10 avocets feeding along the scrapes, but we couldn't stay long so after about 10mins we left the hide but while we were walking back a very nice Wall brown posed very nicely on a flower.

Wall brown

 

When we got back to the car park we went home after an amazing day also we got 5 life ticks!