Ringed Plover in flight

 

This small group is made up of two adults with a juvenile in the middle.

At this timeof the year I know of a spot that is really good to photograph Ringed Plover, just inside the Estuary at Cockwood.  The birds rest at high tide on the sea wall adjacent to the railway line.  When the trains speed by the small flock takes to the air and after circling around for a minute or so they usually land back where they took off from.  By positioning myself quietly on the wall I can photograph them in flight.  Looking back on my blog I can see that I have attempted to photograph the plovers here in September for the last  5 years.  Its an incredibly hard job, the small birds are not as big as a Blackbird and they fly very quickly but it's quite a spectacle as well as a challenge to photograph them in flight.  Ringed Plover breed in the UK but I suspect that this small group which gets bigger as the month progresses is made up of migrants who may or may not then spend the winter on the estuary.

 

 

This is an adult male still (almost) in breeding plumage.

There appears to be just one adult in this small group.