Tata For Now

“Bloody-cold this morning” I said to Ray Mears as he took a break from Arctic Survival training inside the West Hide at Connah’s Quay this morning.

Still, being ice-blasted from the biting wind at least took my mind of my aching joints. That and talking to Ray – freezing temperatures and a mega dose of pharmaceuticals can do strange things to you…

Good numbers of Dunnies and Teal out on the sand and mud flats before high tide, with a larger serving of Oystercatchers and Blackwits over towards Flint Castle.

Nothing out of the ordinary however, so after bidding farewell to everybody’s favourite survival expert it was over to the relatively toasty Middle Hide.

More waders here, including over a hundred K-not, Dunlin, Redshank, plus fifteen Spotted Redshank and three Greenshank.

For afters it was over to Shotton Pools Nature Reserve over at Corus, or should that now be the Tata Shotton Works Nature Reserve? I wonder if the name change was greeted with a chorus of boos? (I should be shot for that one).

I must admit that seeing the ‘Tata’ logo in the United Kingdom a little unnerving; having spent long periods in India, I used to the ubiquitous brand appearing on practically everything, but it seems more that a little odd back in Blighty.

As Denzil has noted, much work has been done down here over the last two months – not much of it sympathetic to the avian inhabitants - I imagine the Cetti’s Warblers may be applying for housing benefit this winter.

Good birds around today though, with a Kingfisher (above, pictured from the Space Station) a nice surprise; even more surprising was that it appeared to have caught an actual fish from the cooling pools.

Two Green Sandpipers were also on the manor, plus a Snipe and the first Goldeneye I have seen this winter.

Not bad, not bad at all.

Until later.