A Trip to the Seaside

As nobody else was coming out to play I thought I'd put in a couple of hours local birding at Ogmore-By-Sea,after a bit of a lay in I arrived at a cold and windy Watermill where a large flock of BH Gulls didn't contain any Med Gulls,there were however 30+ Curlew,4 Grey Heron,1 Little Egret,1 Redwing,several Moorhens and a good sized flock of 72 Lapwings. Lily the Westie was getting a little impatient as I scanned unsuccessfully for the previously reported Green Sandpipers and so I moved on down to Portobello where I bumped in to Paul Roberts and after a quick scan of the gull flock and the island we both walked down river across a very slippery salt marsh. On the river were 10+ Goldeneye(mainly males) and on the salt marsh numerous Meadow Pipits none of which we could turn into Water Pipits although one had very pale underparts and a large flock of 60-70 Linnets,Paul turned back at the end of the salt marsh and I carried on towards the car park where I hoped to catch up with Purple Sandpipers and perhaps Chough. Although there were a few fishermen about a Purple Sand soon revealed itself followed by another three and several Turnstones,I had my camera with me and although the conditions were far from ideal I managed a couple of record shots in the strong wind. We walked on from the car park for about 1/2 mile east and although 4 Chough had been reported earlier I didn't connect with them. The walk back was a little uninspiring with only a couple of Rock Pipits,a Raven overhead and a couple of Shags close in over the surf. Although a little disappointed at not having caught up with Chough both myself and Lily really enjoyed the walk and Purple Sandpiper was added to my year list (although I'm not really year listing-where have I heard that before!!) Jeff