Wading in

A weekend in Braintree, Essex means only one thing for this Warwickshire birder - coast!

Specifically the wonderful blend of tidal mudflats, saltwater marshes and open water that can be found along the Blackwater and Colne estuaries. 

This is a bleak and harsh landscape on a cold, wet and windy February day, but a veritable wonderland for waders, wildfowl and other watery types.

Hoping to start the day with a couple of less obvious year-ticks I stopped first at Abberton Reservoir. The reservoir has changed out of all recognition since I was last there a decade or so ago, but the causeways remains the same, as does its track record for Smew.

Two fine drakes and three redheads made this the largest group I'd ever seen, and together with a confiding Slavonian Grebe in full winter drabs, this was an excellent start (a lurking Great White Egret would have been not only a year tick but a life tick just a few short weeks ago, but of course that ship had recently sailed at Middleton RSPB).

So on to Fingringhoe reserve, a long-standing favourite of mine - full of Nightingale and Turtle Dove in the Summer, but today my best hope to get a few waders on the board.

I certainly wasn't disappointed, particularly with the brilliant new inter-tidal hide which gave me virtually 360 degree views of mudflats bursting with waders: Grey Plovers, a Golden Plover, Ringed Plovers, a Turnstone, Redshanks, Dunlins, Black-tailed Godwits, a handful of Bar-tailed Godwit, Knots, Oystercatchers, Curlews and an Avocet.

Add to that the Skylarks, a magnificent Great Black-backed Gull and a hunkered down male Marsh Harrier, and the year list was soon merrily bouncing along to 91.

Bird of the day: Bar-tailed Godwit (Lamosa lipponica) - I've spent many a winter hour looking at one or other of the godwit species trying to work out which it was; with them here side-by-side I was able to spend a great deal of time so picking through the differences in detail, from the shorter leg length of the 'barwit' to the greater expanse of white-edging around each back feather, which generally makes it appear more 'spangly' than the more smooth-blended 'blackwit'.