Cleethorpes (day 1 and day 2 am)

A few days in Cleethorps this week.

An odd week weather wise with some hot sunshine a few showers then a whacking storm Tuesday afternoon / night.

The sea, here, is mostly miles off but either a large tide of the gates being left shut (according to some locals) resulted in the water within spitting distance of the long, long cycle path that runs past our caravan site.

A fisherman was on a spit of sandbank as the water nearly surrounded him, but he seemed to know what he was doing.

Not knowing the tides here, can be very dangerous. While watching the fisherman a local was recanting tales of dogs being drown in the fast flowing 'unseen at times' creek that runs north / south and of horses and holidaymakers getting stuck in the quicksand stuff near the large fort that can be reached at low tides.

Enough to put me off me breakfast, luckily I'd had mine that day.

DJB's old hunting grounds at Spurn can be seen across the estuary.

The high water encouraged the waders 'nearer' well 3 or 4 Redshanks anyway the rest stayed very distant.

Little Egret are plentiful here and the park is overrun with Barnacle and Greylag Geese.

I was lucky to get some half decent Tern photos, that I will post together, later, when I had had chance to confuse myself trying to ID them.

A good long scan along the tops of the seaside bushes failed to reveal a Shrike sp. alas.

Birds:-

My usual seaside dilemma, the few waders at Ogden that I can ID, are nothing in comparison to the plethora of waders here.

I am however getting better at ID, but with the lock down my seaside visits this year have only been TWO.

Good photos and previous knowledge of the bird is the key, I think, and few distractions ….. when out on a family holiday .... you ain't going to get all three of these though.

Grey Plover OR Golden Plover Or both?, Barnacle Goose, Greylag Goose.

Oystercatcher, Redshank, Curlew.

Kingfisher, Terns that I had a look through on the camera - still to be studied more closely on the laptop  but I believe I have

Common Tern, Sandwich and Arctic Tern.. time will tell.

Little Egret (dozens) Heron (Two).

Linnet (dozens).

Starling flocks in excess of 2,250 at a rough estimate ,from looking at photos.

Black Headed Gull, Common Gull (rare as far as I could tell)

Lesser Black-backed Gull, Great Black-backed Gull.

Herring Gull.

Coot, Moorhen, Mallard.

Cormorant, Peregrine Falcon.

Swallow, Swift, House Martin.

Mute Swan, Green Woodpecker.

Knott, Bar-tailed Godwit, Black-tailed Godwit.

Turnstone, Dunlin, Sanderling, Curlew.

Here are a few photos from Day One - Sun 23rd

and 

Day Two - Mon 24th:-

(Things improved later in the week!)

The fisherman on the spit