I had to be In Thanet today so this gave me the excuse I
needed to have a look for the snow buntings and shore larks reported yesterday.
I arrived at Minnis Bay at around 8.00 and joined the
legions of dog walkers strolling along the prom/sea wall west towards Reculver.
Fortunately most only go as far as the gate across the path which was just as
well as a few yards past the gate I found the 2 snow buntings feeding on the 2
or 3 feet of weed covered beach that hasn’t been eroded (more on that later).
When I spotted the buntings I was all of 8 yards away so I set up the camera
and moved closer for some pictures (this is no exaggeration). The light was
rubbish so I upped the ISO to 640 so as to get 1/200th. I took loads
of shots in part because I love snow buntings and in part to the excessively
high failure rate I was achieving. I know they don’t look like it but snow
bunts are rarely still and any movement resulted in a total blur.
After a few minutes of enjoyment one of the dog walkers decided
to let her dog walk along the 2 feet of
beach top remaining and right under where I was sitting photographing the
birds. Just how un-thoughtful can people be? She didn’t have a white stick so
she must have seen me photographing the birds. Fortunately the birds flew out
over the sea and returned just a few feet from where they started.
At this point I dropped down onto the beach to get some eye
level shots. They weren’t quite so happy about me getting close when on the
beach but seemed happy with 7-8 yards.
Eventually even I tired of taking their picture so wandered
off towards Cold Harbour in search of shore larks and seeing lots of mippits
and chaffinch on the beach and up near
Cold Harbour a large flock of linnet and goldfinch (400?) plus a few brambling.
On the wader front there was a flock of 60 or so ringed
plovers, 20-25 turnstones and a group of 8 grey plovers.
At Cold Harbour there
were a pair of stonechats but the most notable thing was the level of erosion
the shingle bank there is suffering from. The top of the bank is now only 3 feet
wide at it’s eastern end and another storm or two could see it completely
washed away. A lot of the beach along the whole stretch between Minnis Bay and
Reculver is disappearing so I Googled “Erosion
at Minnis bay” and all I could find was this (it wasn't dated so I don't know how current this line of thought is)
To summarise it says that the current short term plan is to
try and maintain the current beach and sea defences but over the long term this
is unsustainable due to the lack of material to rebuild the beach . The
beach would therefore be surrendered
under a “Managed realignment” creating salt marsh (with the loss of the Oyster
Farm etc) with the maximum extent of the ingress being the seaward side of the
railway. The beach is disappearing at quite a rate so this could happen pretty
soon.
At Cold Harbour I turned round and retraced my steps but
this time I found the shore larks about level with Plumb Pudding stables. They
were on the wider part of the beach top but as they saw me approaching on the
road they dropped down to the lower beach. I sneaked out onto the top part of
the beach and managed a few shots before they’d had enough and flew off west.
Mike Gould had joined me by this time and he too managed a
few shots.
I told Mike about the snow bunts so he walked with me back
towards the gate – the snow buntings were still there. A few more shots
then it started to rain so we both departed. This was just as well as I got a
phone call from the wife asking that I come and collect her from the hospital.
Some great shots Steve and no noise.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant images of these photogenic birds!
ReplyDelete