Tragedy and Tapestry

The Coquet Estuary has a very mid summer feel at the moment, the Old Water scrub, reed beds and Picnic Site car park is alive with 1st broods of Robin, Dunnock, Chiff Chaff, Goldfinch, Blackcap, Mistle Thrush and noisy groups of young Starling patrol the saltmarsh and golf course.

Young Chiff Chaff

The estuary is very different, but interesting. There are very few birds on the estuary, it seems to be dominated by groups of Eider and Shelduck chicks being marshaled around by the odd attentive adult. 
Conversation over tea got me thinking, today there were a few waders that we thought were returning breeding birds from, probably, local upland areas, small numbers, less than 10, of Lapwing, Redshank and Curlew. This seemed an excellent time to start taking real notice of the waders present on the estuary. A count perhaps during each visit, this would provide an great record of arrivals and movements from now until the end of the autumn period, and, while I'm counting and looking through birds there is always the chance of finding something exciting or different. Anyway, enough of plans that I probably wont fulfill.

Stewart and I walked the track down the Old Water first thing this morning. A small Gull was picked out in a group of Black Headed Gulls, Little Gull?, we wondered and then the bird was spotted flying up the old water, a very young Black Headed Gull, a first flight by the looks of things, it settled nicely on the water.
After walking a little further we heard a bit of a noisy commotion behind us, Black Headed Gulls were mobbing a Carrion Crow. The Crow was sitting on the bridge that crosses to the caravan site and was watching the young swimming Gull.
No interest to a Crow a bird of that size we thought, we were wrong. The young Gull lifted from the water and flew, it made an error though, it flew over the saltmarsh. The Carrion Crow grabbed the Gull in flight and they both dropped to the ground. We, wrongly perhaps, rushed over to the scene, the young Gull slipped away in Stewart's hands. We left it and the Carrion Crow quickly returned to its meal, hopefully for young of its own..  

Young Black Headed Gull, top, and Carrion Crow

A slow ponderous wander through the dunes followed, fabulous wildflowers to enjoy, photograph and try to name.

Viper's Bugloss

Maiden Pink

I must do a good search through of these dunes and try and get some good identifications and photographs for a post later.

Wildflowers of a somewhat more cultivated nature provided the final flourish of the morning. We parked up along the track at Birling and the field right nest to where we parked had been sown with Barley and a mix of wildflower seeds. Quite a sight, wish we could have more areas like this each year.

   
Fabulous