An afternoon at the seaside

photos taken with iPhone 4S

And now for something completely different

I'm back from Another Place, the Antony Gormley installation on Crosby beach, Merseyside. There are 100 life-sized metal figures on the beach. When the tides are at their highest, they can all be submerged totally.

When we were there, the tide was on its way out. New sculptures appeared all the time, which was weird. It shows the power of nature, or that whoever put them in did a really good job in making sure they didn't get dragged out to sea. They're mounted on metre-long piles sunk into the beach.

I remember reading some conservationists' concerns that the sculptures might scare birds off, but we watched a flock of Sanderlings scurrying around right next to one. I guess the increased numbers of visitors might be more of an issue, but it was pretty empty while we were there, on a blowy Tuesday afternoon.

The Starlings were in the car park, close to the ice-cream van and mobile burger bar. They were mostly males, congregating next to people who were sitting in their cars. The birds sang while they waited.

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photos taken with Canon EOS 30D + EF 300mm f/4L IS USM or Canon Powershot A640

Coast

Gibraltar Point, early doors

In our usual perverse fashion, we went to Lincolnshire on Friday night because there were lots of good birds turning up in Norfolk and East Yorkshire.

Camping is usually filled with experiences to delight the senses; unsurprisingly, it was bloody cold at night, but we added Little Owl and Barn Owl to our tent list (Bittern is probably still the best bird on it).

The absurdly well-equipped (internet, gas heater, fairy lights) campers in the tent next to ours kindly loaned us their battery-powered airbed inflator, which was nice. Later on, they had a noisy argument, which was not so nice.

A wander round Skegness seafront early on Saturday was next to useless, due to thick fog which persisted until about 1pm. If there were any good birds, they were invisible. Eventually we went to Gibraltar Point (nice cafe) and wandered around the dunes. There weren't many birds around and nothing was moving, but a Yellow-browed Warbler gave itself away by calling from an inaccessible bush.

We'd nearly finished trudging around when a last look along the road revealed another Yellow-browed, flitting around in an Elder bush - briefly.

Sunday morning was less foggy, and sunny briefly before the sun got up behind the clouds. The skies were a bit more lively, with skeins of Pink-footed Geese heading for Norfolk, the odd Redwing, Brambling and plenty of Siskins and Redpolls.

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640