Where birds rule the roost and humans can only look on
Also: £5 off when you spend £25 in my shop*
How much does the moon affect your everyday life? Possibly not too much, especially if, like me, if you live away from the coast.
At the start of the month there was a series of very high tides, and the tides, as everyone knows, are controlled by the man in the moon.
For birds that depend on finding food on tidal mudflats, extra-high tides mean disruption to their routines. If you’re a Curlew, Oystercatcher, Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot or other bird dependent on eating worms, molluscs and other goodies from the mud, and your mud is covered by seawater, you need to do something. You need to move away for a time and rest somewhere safe in order to conserve energy. Huge flocks of wading birds are driven off the mud by the sea and that means exciting times for birdwatchers who get to watch the action.
For this reason I was at Snettisham, on the Norfolk coast, bright and early. Watching from the beach, we could see the sea approaching - like someone had put the plug in the bath and was running the taps. Channels in the mud began to fill with seawater, and birds feeding a long way out began to gather and hunt for slightly higher ground so they didn’t have to swim. Eventually they had to take to the air.
Below: a video I took on my phone - don’t expect amazing film skills but do turn your sound on!
While a good chunk of the birds flew low over our heads to take refuge on some old gravel pits, others seemed to fly around very high up. They looked like wispy clouds, almost invisible. After the tide had passed its high point and the mud began to be revealed again, the flocks started to fly low back over the beach.
It was a magical experience, and maybe even a bit emotional. Something got in my eye behind my sunglasses. (Don’t tell anyone.) I can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe it’s because the birds were in their element, feeding up on what they found in the tidal mud; moving around with ease and thriving in an environment where humans flail around uselessly.
I get a similar feeling watching the huge ‘seabird city’ at Bempton on the Yorkshire coast, where it’s clear that birds are expert at making use of the huge cliffs and the rich bounty that lies beneath the waves. It’s somewhere that can be so hostile for people. Humans have destroyed or damaged so much of our environment that it’s inspiring to go to places where birdlife is still abundant.
Below: an avian ‘Where’s Wally?’ with Knot and Oystercatchers (and some interlopers) resting up on the pits at Snettisham. The Knot will have migrated to The Wash from Greenland or maybe Arctic Canada to spend ‘winter’ on estuaries at the edge of the North Sea.
Below: After the high tide, the seawater starts to recede, the mud is uncovered again and birds can start to return.
Want to see this for yourself?
Read about Snettisham on the RSPB website and view the recommended high tide dates and times so you don’t miss out.
*£5 off when you spend £25 in my shop
Etsy is doing a nice thing this weekend. When you spend £25 in my Etsy shop and use the code GET5 you’ll get a discount of £5. This applies to shoppers in the UK, US and Canada. (So you can get £5 off most of my handmade, limited edition linocut prints.)
Don’t delay, shop today - the code is valid until Monday 18 Sep 4:59am BST (Sunday Sep 17 at 11:59pm US ET).
The really good bit is that Etsy is stumping up the £5 so I’ll still get the full amount as usual. Happy days!