{"id":1515,"date":"2009-11-02T00:11:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-02T00:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1515"},"modified":"2013-11-12T21:39:52","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T21:39:52","slug":"a-walk-along-rottingdean-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/a-walk-along-rottingdean-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"A Walk Along Rottingdean Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The rain finally cleared away from the coast mid afternoon, and needing some fresh air we went for a bracing walk along Rottingdean beach. For a dull windy day, it was high on the success scale for bird spotting. This is the view when we arrived.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/hunger_city_0111099567.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>I saw an oystercatcher skim by. And there were gulls aplenty, though mainly of the Herring variety. Among them was a great black-backed gull.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/great_black_backed_gull_0111099554.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>A more unusual visitor was lurking at the edge of the water. This is the first heron I&#39;ve seen along the beach. The gulls eventually decided that a heron  was one intruder too many, and several started a minor mobbing.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/heron_0111099588.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/heron_0111099601.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The heron settled further along the beach, near where this relatively rare visitor was trying its luck in the surf. <br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/curlew_0111099617.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The heron had its own ideas though, and very soon chased the curlew away.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/heron_curlew_0111099647.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>While all this was going on, a flock (well, six) cormorants flew by.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/cormorants_x6_0111099734.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>And on the rocks, the starlings gathered as the sun began to lower in the sky.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/starling_0111099722.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>If there&#39;s one thing starlings are renowned for, it&#39;s their flocking and sure enough they took to the skies in a typically ragged, but unbelievably well coordinated, fashion.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/starlings_0111099740.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>And throughout, the sea transmuted into gold under the changing light.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/sea_0111099782.jpg' \/><\/span> <br \/><span class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/button.php?u=Words\" width=\"0\" height=\"0\" alt=\"Nature Blog Network\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/><i>Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 40D and  EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens with UV filter.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1044,989],"tags":[33,246,136],"class_list":["post-1515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coastal","category-water-birds-birds-2","tag-birds","tag-rottingdean","tag-sea","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}