Bookends of the day

The Safari got to work just as the sun was rising...

We didn't get much of a chance to look at Patch 2, it was very gloomy out there and all we could find were a couple of hundred or so gulls and a similar number of Oystercatchers on the beach and only about 50 Common Scoters and a Great Crested Grebe on the sea.

We had offers of a return trip out to look for the Snow Buntings and headless Grey Seal but we were too busy at the keyboard to accept. Here/s a couple of ours from yesterday.

Still none the wiser as to what's been going on here - probably natural?

For proper Snow Bunting pics see BD's quality images. 

Late afternoon we looked out of the office window and saw a bit of a sunset beginning to happen so we txtd CR and arranged to meet him at the pier on the way home.

The Starlings were putting on a good show at Central Pier but there's nowhere to stop and watch there. Looking further along there seemed to be hardly any at North Pier where we'd arranged to meet up.

All the while we were looking over our shoulder watching the sun sink quickly towards the horizon while in front of us a slow dweeb was seriously getting our goat! We needed to be moving quicker.

These are supposed to be in time order and straight off the camera apart from a mnior tweek to get the horizon level and a tiny crop.

Was privileged to have stood there and witnessed that - thank you sea, sun and sky; great show - oh and the birds weren't too bad either. There seemed to be two flocks murmurating one at the pier end coming out to the right and the other around the middle and it was a case of ne'er the twain...even when a male Peregrine put in an a very brief appearance - did he get one? they didn't tighten up together and throw some really impressive shapes.

Where to next? A visit to an educational institution in the north of town in association with AFON in the morning followed by a beach clean straight after lunch - that could be interesting cos we've not had a look down there since the storm, might be a few things of interest for the camera and/or our box of 'props'.

In the meantime let us know who's providing the spectacle in your outback.