Trip to Oare 11.10.2010

Yesterday I took a drive down to Oare, it was a very blustery day with the wind coming out of the NE, as the tide rose and pushed off the local waders, who then took shelter on the scrape, the water level seems to appear very high, thus not allowing roosting in the water, so the islands were packed with waders, Godwits, quite a few Redshank and an amazing number of Ringed Plover who came in small numbers at a terific rate of knots and seemed to enjoy the strong wind. An Egret took off from across the scrape and flew towards me and passed overhead, I saw its feet were black and not yellow, I thought immediately Great Egret but then it dawned on me that it was a case of muddy feet. As you can see by my picture of the Swale and the rather grand yacht that sailed into the Swale the wind was very high and can only imagine that the Skipper and crew were glad to drop anchor in the lee of the island after an obvious encounter with larger and more uncomfortable seas further out.