Rye Harbour Sunsets

We've had some lovely sunny days over Christmas, and I've been down to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve a few times to make the most of it. Here's a few snaps of the sunset there a couple of days ago:

Walking back along the beach I saw this huge flock of Oystercatchers...

Of course, they took off as I approached! I felt a bit bad for disturbing them, but it was past sunset by this point so I knew they'd be heading to the lake for the night soon anyway...

Mike

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Chicks hatched at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve

The Black Headed Gull chicks are out!

Here's a short video of them:

Interestingly, they've only hatched in one of the lakes, I guess the birds nested there earlier. On the other side there's no chicks, and lots of Sandwich Terns:

Plus a few Oyster Catchers too:

Next update in a few days...

Mike

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Trying out the new camera lens

Having realised that Sterling falling against the Yen and Dollar meant that electronics were going to get more expensive, I bought a new lens for my camera last week. It goes up to 300mm, whereas the one I already had only went to 200mm. This is particularly useful for getting photos of birds, so I cycled down to the beach at Rye Harbour yesterday with it.

Here's some pictures of Oystercatchers:
Remember you can see larger versions on my Flickr page.

Here's some Ringed Plovers. It was harder to get these guys flying, mainly because there weren't as many around. They're actually quite well camouflaged (I've brought up the contrast in the photo below to make them more visible), and on one occasion I didn't see a small flock on the ground until I nearly walked into them!
and here's an adult and juvenile Herring Gull And finally, as usual for the winter, they're busy pushing stones around to try and keep the sea out:The rest of the beach still looks nice though:
Mike

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