Sandwich Tern

Lizzy and I had a mini-holiday today! I drove us all up to Donna Nook NNR, and while Pete and Chris were hard at work surveying the sea banks for the Environment Agency, we walked and talked in endless sunshine, tempered by a cool sea breeze - so lovely to have time to catch up with her properly.

The workers had finished by half past five, which we thought was a bit early for dinner, so we headed down to Theddlethorpe beach, where we saw some good birds on autumn migration last year. It was relatively quiet today, but there was a steady movement of Sandwich Terns and a fly past by a group of over thirty Whimbrel as well as several scurries of Sanderling along the edge of the incoming tide (see extra). It was hard to drag ourselves away from this glorious beach.

We decided to stop at Alford for a pub meal, but failed miserably as the two traditional pubs weren't serving food, and felt very much like local pubs for local people. We headed south and ended up at the Red Lion at Partney, with only minutes to spare before they were due to stop serving food. They took pity on us, and we had our meal sitting outside in their stunning, recently landscaped garden. The staff were all friendly and the food was top quality - I can definitely recommend a visit!

The downside of stopping for a meal was that I had to drive most of the rest of the way home in the dark, but the consolation was watching a beautiful orange Sturgeon supermoon rising over the fen (see extra). We eventually found somewhere to stop and take a photograph, though it was hard to do it justice with the lenses I had available. In reality, it had a soft orange glow around it - just stunning...