Cartmel Marsh

I was out early this morning to do the first of my national Winter Bird Atlas visits of the season. This is a 2 hour census of a 2 x 2 Km square, recording all birds seen or heard, and trying to keep a reasonably accurate count. This is the top of the saltmarsh, south of Holker Hall, west of Cark-in-Cartmel on the edge of Morecambe Bay where there are permanent brackish pools.

This square includes a large area of mudflats and channel, and counting is not easy. There were large numbers of eiders, pintails, shelducks, redshanks and oystercatchers together with compact and flighty flocks of smaller waders such as dunlin and knot which are hard to count.

It was also a bit of a race against the rapidly rising tide, far out on the saltmarsh there is a danger of getting marooned by water quickly pushing up the creeks that traverse the marsh. The rate at which water travels up the creeks is astonishing, a little bow wave moves at walking pace along the channels. The saltmarshes here are grazed by sheep, and clearly these animals sense when the tide is about to come in, moving landwards before any water appears in the creeks.

My blip consultant advised against me using my alternative, a somewhat minimalist image of Chapel island. She felt it was too other wordly, perhaps she's right, but that's why I liked it.

As for this image, it has been observed that I have a liking for strong lines in my photos, but this may be taking it a bit far.