The neighbours...

Headed out this afternoon to take pics of the Blockship wrecks for Hope. But due to a high tide and a flat light the wreck pics were pointless. Hope, I'll attempt them another day. However the bird life was more co-operative. For once the pics I took so that I could go back and figure out which bird looked vaguely like the ones in the book, were actually not bad. All of these were seen from the beach about 1km from our house.

Clockwise from the top:

Ringed Plover - I love these little guys. They scurry around the beach looking very dapper and trying to distract you from their eggs.

Eider ducks - (Shyperson, easy to tell the boys from the girls with these.) Can't wait until their ducklings hatch, they all hangout in a creche and are adorable.

Long tailed ducks - female on the right, male on the left. Very exotic these ones.

Arctic Skua - thought this one and it's mate were going to have a go at me, dived a bit too close for comfort.

Sanderling - another scurrier. When I checked this one in the book one of the pics of it running along the beach was in exactly the same position as the illustration.

Arctic Tern - A real sign of Summer here. These birds travel 12,000km (7,500 miles) back here to breed every Summer and then head south to the Antarctic for another Summer down there. Hopefully there will be lots of sand eels for them to feed their chicks with this year. They, like the skuas, dive at your head if you get to close to there nests. But these ones were to busy fighting with the gulls to worry about me.
(Note - This one may be a Common Tern, they are very similar and I don't know enough to tell the difference. But their story isn't as dramatic so I'll stick with a bit of artistic licence.)

There was a Bonxy (Great Skua) about but I didn't get close enough to get a pic. I hopefully will at some point in the Summer as I have a soft spot for them. They are real thugs of the seabird world but there is something about them that I really like.