Diver duo

Today dawned bright and clear, so I decided to do the walk I did on the 24th, but in reverse, starting at Shotley Marina and walk up the Orwell to the Clamp. It was high tide and I didn't see much to begin with, but upon drawing level with Levington Marina I found a Guillemot, which refused to have its photo taken - it was constantly diving and would move quite large distances underwater making tracking it difficult.

Fortunately I didn't quite exhaust my camera battery (which was running very low...), as a bit further on I came across not one, but two Great Northern Divers. I managed a few hand held shots of the closest with the tiny bit of power I had left before my camera died, and then phone-scoped the two birds in the same shot. I was a bit gutted as the closest bird really was ridiculously close - maybe 40 metres at its nearest, and the light was fantastic! I think might have to order a spare battery as a backup...

One of the two Great Northern Divers on the Orwell

Two Great Northern Divers on the Orwell (phone-scoped)

Finally tearing myself away from the divers, Hares Creek hosted good numbers of roosting waders (until they were disturbed by a windsurfer), including several hundred Curlew, a flock of Avocet, a few Bar-tailed Godwits, and 15 Red-breasted Mergansers, which were joined by hundreds of Knot and Dunlin as the tide fell. In the field behind, a flock of maybe 150 Brents were all Dark-bellied (with only a handful of young birds) - there seem to be far fewer of these around this year than normal.

The walk back across the fields to Chelmondiston from the Clamp was largely uneventful, except for a party of 10 Lesser Redpoll which flew over.