Away Day Part III

 A bit of a boon to have the compossition of the Triogy in the making as the rain on Sunday was sporadic to say the least and so to Ferrybridge but not for long! Having paid the £2.00 for the single hour in car park and placing the ticket in the window we reached for the camera and tripod only to find the former 

Absent From Place of Duty

The drive to and from the Bird Observatory took a full 50 minutes to recover it not to mention another 2 quid out of the purse, but leaning heavily on my favourite adage "if that is all that befalls me today I will be happy" we got on with the show" as we had timed the tide prefectly. with the

GULL FLOCK
mostly

BLACK-HEADED GULLs
with a sprinkling of

MEDITERRANEAN GULLs
and still in hope of the reported c2 minor 'goodies'?

while the few

TURNSTONE

were performing something of a ballet

of their own while continuing the Wader theme with

just a single

BAR-TAILED GODWIT

feeding voraciously flying from one location to another.
Heading across the sand-flats to Small-Mouth where the tidal flow runs under the main-road to and from Portland Harbour, we spotted a likely candidate for one of the so called 'Goodies' and found it to be just that

 a male

GOOSEANDER

plodding its way up the Fleet!

Taking time to watch the

Sails of the Kite-Surfers and another 'pass' by the Orange Chopper
then walking 'under' the very same road we fistly came across a few seemingly angry Cormorants and this

LITTLE EGRET
before locking onto the second goodie and object of our desire

the also previously reported

EIDER

not at any great distance but

evasive as frequently

choosing to hide behind the breakwater and will look like

this, from the archive, when reaching maturity!
and just moments before turning to retrace our tracks this

STONECHAT
took up perch on the boatyard fence.
Most unusual, given the time of year, it dawned on us that as yet we had seen no signs of a

BRENT GOOSE

at a location where there are often

HUNDREDS
but at that moment just c5 but maybe this

was the begining of the influx, but we didn't wait to find out!