East Flood.
This was the view from the road of the East Flood at Oare Marshes today , almost completely frozen over , i haven't been out for a couple of weeks mainly due to work and weather conditions , this was my car ankle deep in snow last weekend .
My snow covered car last weekend .
So it was nice to be able to put in a couple of hours at Oare today , there was a large gathering of ducks in the middle of the East flood where there was only a small amount of water not frozen over , these mainly consisted of Shoveler , Mallard , Teal and large numbers of Pintail of which there was approx 50 birds .
Mixed flock of ducks .
I drove down to the sea wall from here and was soon scanning the mud flats and the Swale , lots of Dunlin , Redshank and Avocet with lesser numbers of Curlew and Grey Plover , several gulls were moving up and down the Swale although i didn't see anything out of the ordinary amongst them , i decided to walk along the sea wall towards the sea hide and was followed along the path by 3 Rock Pipits which were busy looking for food along the rocks to my left , there were a couple of Meadow Pipits here and there plus a female Marsh Harrier was busy flying around the reed bed and East flood unsettling the ducks every so often.
Avocets on the mud flats .
I continued my walk along the sea wall adding a very cold looking Turnstone to my year list and also i picked out in the distance on the Swale a male Red Breasted Merganser which brightened a dull day , i scanned the whole area not adding much more other than a few thrushes searching desperately for food plus a tiny Wren put in a brief appearance , poor little thing hope it survives the snow and ice , i decided to head back to my car and took anther look over the East flood before heading home for a welcome mug of hot chocolate .
Grey Heron on a very icy East Flood.
