I went down to the Rottingdean cliffs early this morning, before the rains arrived. The wind was blowing a near gale and the Undercliff walk was treacherous with waves crashing over the sea defences. It wasn’t a day for venturing along there with the camera.
There is a small area of pebble beach nestling between the stone groynes where things are a little calmer on days like this, even with the tide at a seasonal high. A small group of oystercatchers were sheltering on the pebbles, and picking among them for scraps of food.
A pair were bold enough to venture out into the surf.
And then away… perhaps to find somewhere a little less exposed to the elements.
Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.
gdare
4 Jan 2014I’ve read about the storm warning for southern UK yesterday in the news. It seems things got serious over there again. Anyway, not a time for wondering too close to the beach but good enough for some photographs :up: You’ve made me remember some of your old photos of waves in the same area, just beautiful!
I was a bit confused about oystercatchers, I thought they have dark cream colour and downwards curved beak. We’ve seen quite few of them in Mexico, but I am not at home at the moment so can’t post anything. But in a few days I will make a new post and put all the photos with animals we’ve seen there. Anyway, a bird I am talking about looks similar to this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_Curlew
but without a photo it is just a guess…
Words
5 Jan 2014Hi Darko, we have curlews as well. They occasionally come down to the coast along here, but I tend to see them slightly more inland in wetland areas (though everywhere is ‘wetland’ at the moment… they could rename the country).