Oare Marsh

I visited Oare Marshes this morning, mainly to see the effects of the tidal surge on Friday. A stop in Oare village revealed some of the extent of the flooding down towards the Creek which was covered in water on the western side. One of the residents told me that on Friday morning it looked much, much worse as the water levels were much lower and the Shipwright Arms was flooded totally plus the fields along Ham Road.

I had to park at the top end of the road at Oare Marsh as the car park and most of road was underwater. Several black-tailed godwits and a couple of ruff were feeding on small grassy areas poking through the water on the western side plus several pintail were dotted about.

West Flood

Making my way on the path to the Creek I turned right and walked back towards Oare where I could see all the 'New Acquisitions' were covered in seawater, the only birds being a couple redshank, 5 greenfinches, 2 mipits and 1 reed bunting.

About turned and headed to the sea-watching hide seeing at least 40-50 pintail on the main east flood but no waders as all the islands were still completely underwater. The gate and footpath near the sluice must have been almost three feet underwater at this point judging by all the grass wedged into the fences.

Met up with Murray and co. at the car park where we turned and retraced our steps back to the cars with a brief stop at the sea-watching hide again. Tried to count the avocet flock at the mouth of the Creek and made it just over one hundred but when I got home on the pc. the flock totalled 158!

Two rock pipits whizzed around the corner and landed briefly on the seaweed covered rocks but no long enough for a decent photography.