Fitties Birdwatching

The Corona Virus predicament was beginning to kick in this week but little did we know that this was to be the last walk where we would meet up with friends, albeit, keeping socially distanced.  Nigel and myself had agreed to meet up at Buck Beck car park, driving separately in our own cars despite living 5 minutes away from each other.  During our walk we carefully kept our 2m distance.

It was a grey day with a chill breeze as we set off from the car park and headed down onto the saltmarsh backing the beach.  We could see that the tide was well in and when we reached Anthony's Bank we realised that the beach was covered by the tide and so we continued along the elevated sea bank.  There were plenty of people about and most were keeping a distance from each other.  We continued to the Humber Morth Yacht Club on The Fitties and then headed out across the beach towards the mouth of the Haven where the Louth Canal flows out into the estuary.  There was an abundance of bird life about although the numbers of brent geese were down, the greater number having begun their migration back to the arctic.  As the tide receded flocks of waders began to fly up from their roosting grounds to move back to the mud flats to feed.  What a wonderful sight.  One of the most stirring were the flocks of curlew.  I had seen groups of these large wader a few days previously on the fallow fields behind the sea bank towards Tetney Lock gates.  As the tide was still quite high we were turned back by deep creeks before we could reach the have mouth.  By this time we were well out on the mudflats on the edge of the saltmarsh; what a magnificent wild place to be.  We are extremely lucky to have this on our doorstep.  This is a regular walk and little did I know that this would be my last visit for some time.  I shall miss it.  We made out way back to the ponds by the sea bank and were pleased to see mallard, wigeon, teal, shoeveler and little egret.  After a flask of hot chocolate sitting enjoying the view over the estuary, it was time to head back to the car and home.
Oysercatcher and redshank in good numbers
Brent geese
Curlew - large groups
Gulls 
Little Egret
Shoveler
Wigeon
Teal
Mallard
Reed Bunting
House Sparrow
Skylark
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