Redcar - Greater sand plover

The greater sand plover was gratefully showing well along the shoreline a couple of hundred metres from the Majuba Car Park in Redcar.  Even more grateful that shortly after my arrival, the plover flew strongly north along the beach as the tide rushed in.  The summer plumaged turnstone were lovely too.

It was all very relaxing - the long drive was traffic free, the site easy to find, the weather was glorious, and the beach looked immaculate.

Not really expecting to see the bird immediately, the day was my lobster so after enjoying the beach for a short while, I headed to South Gare for a bit of wader action.  A couple of hundred of dunlin were running the tideline, nine bar-tailed godwit, and four little stint.  A lone wheatear flicked past the rocky foreshore.

The juvenile red-backed shrike was still present in an area of scattered scrub on the eastside of the channel.

Noticing that the plover had flown approximately 2 km from the car park, the walk from the shrike continued beachside.  Here, there were large aggregations of waders including around 200 oystercatcher and plenty of ringed plover, sanderling and turnstone with decent groups of boisterous sandwich tern offshore.  The greater sand plover was picked up again in amongst the throng of waders continually evading the presence of beachwalkers.  Looking around, and with not another soul within a few hundred metres, the plover was all mine for a couple of minutes ending a pleasant day in a really lovely part of the country.