Braving the rain

With it being another wet, dismal weekend weather-wise and the various forecasts contradictory, I flipped a coin to decide to go out.  To be honest, I haven’t been too motivated as much this year with the predictable weather of wet, windy, greyness, it just demoralises me.  Heads I go out in the cold and rain, tails I stay in the nice warmth and just relax.  When heads came up, I was thinking of calling it best out of three. When I left, it was raining a bit, by the time I reached the coast it was raining a lot.  Things perked up when I quickly came across a mixed flock of Sanderlings and Turnstones by a rock pool and decided to sit back and just watch them for a while before getting close.  They were right next to an area where people who had braved the weather were walking pass, so they would fly off to the tideline when someone approached then run across the sand back to where they were feeding.  I waited until the next time they were spooked by a passer-by then positioned myself so I might get some shots, which worked.  First, some of them approached, poking their head over the sand bank checking me out, then sprinted across in front of me to the rock pool.  Despite the poor light, I was able to get a few decent images, though, as standard recently, the ISO was cranked up to 1600 so I could get a decent shutter speed. Whatever they had found to eat amongst the seaweed, was worth their continuing flying off and then quickly returning.

I eventually moved off to another part of the beach and decided to have a closer look at mounds of seaweed to see what was in it as far as possible wader food and was surprised as to how much man-made junk was amongst it – netting, plastics, tin cans, bottle tops and bits of material.  Some of the seaweed was quite colourful – to be honest, not something I’ve really looked closely at and noticed.

Stormy view looking across to Blyth

St Marys Lighthouse on a grey, wet Spring

With the rain becoming heavier, I wasn’t too concerned about my Mk IIn camera as it’s water resistance (I hope!) but I didn’t want push my luck with my expensive tele lens which isn’t, so packed up and had a wonder around to see what else was about.  I thought the frogs might be around in the small pools of water further inland, as this time last year they were active but spring has been colder this year, so maybe next week.

Hmm…not quite in the spirit of the sign me thinks