RSPB Frampton Marsh: A Spot of Birdwatching - Part 2

in Amazing Nature3 years ago

This is Part 2 of 2, and forms part of an entry to the Amazing Nature Competition run by @adalger. Go check out the fantastic Community to see more excellent images and articles

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And here we go with part 2 - Check out the First Part for the start of this story.

A quick recap: my partner @dawnsart and I had travelled down to Frampton March Nature Reserve for a spot of bird watching. At the halfway stage we had already seen lots of cool stuff, and managed a couple of half decent photos in the process

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A view across the Wetland/Salt Marsh Habitat... my partner wrote a more detailed description of what a Salt Marsh is on her Blog. The red-ish plants here are Purple Glasswort (Salicornia ramosissima)

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And here is another Little Egret, seen here stalking between the plants on the look out for food...

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And then on the other side we spotted these Shoveller Ducks, they get the name from the unusually large Bills (Beaks?) that they have. I apologise for the naff pictures again. I have a really very good telephoto zoom lens (Sigma 150-600mm C) but most of these birds are just too far away.

Its a tad frustrating really.

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Some more ducks, these are Wigeon, the male has the bright chestnut coloured head, the female is much drabber in appearance.

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Ooh a Lapwing! These are gorgeous little birds, with almost iridescent plumage. The colours look slightly metallic, and they change colour slightly depending on the angle of light from the sun... from some angles they look black and white, but from others there is a green/purple sheen to the feathers

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Canada Geese flying over-head

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And here are some different geese. In the last post we have already seen Canada Geese and some Greylag Geese, in the distance here is another species: Brent Geese (Source).

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And a better shot, here is one of the Brent Geese flying past us to join the rest of the group

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Some more birds to see, these gorgeous little birds are Avocets, and once again my pictures don't do them justice. The image below shows a much better shot, when we saw these delightful birds down near Norfolk

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Original Post - https://peakd.com/hive-127788/@dannewton/competition-entry-amazing-nature

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We are right at the end of the far edge of the reserve, and we see this sign: "Witham Mouth 3KM". We check the map, and it turns out it refers to the River Witham, and the location where it meets the sea is 3km in that direction... well what are we waiting for....

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It turns out to be a very long path... in the middle of the shot are two guys, and we ended up following them all the way to the end.

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On the way we saw another Little Egret... this time he was flying past us.

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Some more shots of the various plants... the Purple Glasswort was a really vibrant colour

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and then there were these fluffy seed heads....

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most likely these are the Sea Aster (Tripolium pannonicum) which are common in these coastal areas

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and when we stop getting distracting by the local flora... we look up and realise we can nearly see the sea

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Nearly there!

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A view of the Salt Marsh meeting the beach.

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which is an opportunity for more pictures...

(if in doubt, take more pictures 😉)

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And after trapsing for what seemed like hours and hours, mile after mile, we got a surprise....there were some different birds here right on the sea edge

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These are Oystercatchers.

There were hundreds of these, all together feeding on small invertebrates and molluscs in the mud. I often see these inland, where they live in warmer months, but I only ever see one or 2 at a time. To see so many here unexpectedly was a real treat

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One final set of images, we saw more of these Brent Geese, and we were able to get a bit closer to get some better pictures

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But we must have over done it, as they soon took off and flew to the other side of the river.

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Nevermind. It was still a productive day, and we saw all sorts of interesting stuff.

Now it was time to walk all the way back to the car.... time to put the cameras away and start trudging back.

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Thank you for reading, I hope you found it interesting.

If you have any thoughts or opinions on this article then I'd love to see your comments.
And if you really like the content then maybe you would like to upvote or re-hive it.

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All Photos taken by @dannewton unless otherwise stated.
Check out my website for more of my work.

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