It was a beautiful day yesterday (unlike today) so I decided to walk out to the tide line from Buck Beck car park to look for small waders, especially sanderling.
Cleethorpes was very busy when I arrived with a real holiday atmosphere, however, I did managed to get parked. Donning wellies, I headed out across the marsh towards the beach, but not before photographing a common darter in the dunes. I was amazed at how much the marsh has grown up in the relatively short time since I was here last. Where last winter it was bare mud with the occasional clump of samphire it is now covered with a rich saltmarsh flora with sea aster about to come into flower to succeed the sea lavender which is now gone over. As soon as I came out through the dunes onto the beach I could see that the tide was a long way out. When I got to the old wreck that I enjoy photographing and which often remains submerged, the tideline was still several hundreds of yards away and some creeks would need to be crossed. Wary of how quickly the tide can come in I opted to walk along the haven outflow and look for waders there. There were oystercatcher, redshank and ringed plovers, including juveniles as well as a bar-tailed godwit. I saw no sign of sanderling, though. Perhaps they were right on the tideline or maybe it is too early for them yet. I nearly came to grief, however, when I suddenly hit a very soft patch of mud and nearly lost my wellies. I suddenly became aware of how far out I was and what an expensive mistake it would have been to fall over with a small fortune in camera gear around my neck. Spurn point and the Humber forts looked spectacular in the bright sunlight and through the lens they looked close enough to touch.
Eventually I made it back safely to hard ground and wandered back through the dunes past the lagoon which often holds little egret; a common gull was the only bird today, though.
It felt like being on holiday on such a warm late summer day with large numbers of people and families enjoying a day at the seaside. It will only be a few short weeks, however, before it will be cold, bleak and empty down here. I can't wait.
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