SOLWAY: Southerness Point 22/12/08.

The 22nd was a cracking morning in total contrast to the previous day - clear and calm with a flat sea on the Solway Firth. We parked up near the lighthouse at Southerness and munched on a snack with coffee before venturing out onto the point. There were plenty of Barnacle Geese flying around inland and a few V formations made their way along the coast as we scrambled around on the rocks in search of Purple Sandpipers. We eventually found just 5 in their favourite spot on the rocky peninsula with Turnstones.
It seems that the days of flocks of 20+ Purple Sand's at Southerness are gone forever now but it's difficult to get an accurate count here unless there's a big tide covering most of the rocks.
The sea off the point was pretty quiet with just a few Great Crested Grebes, Red-breasted Mergansers and fly-by flocks of Oystercatchers and Knot but a Kingfisher was a big surprise!
Plenty of waders on the beach too including a pack of 300+ Knot, 45 Ringed Plovers and 30+ Dunlin. We counted 27 Grey Plovers on the sands to the west of the point and single Greenshank was a bonus.
Making our way back to the car we found a flock of at least 56 Golden Plover and then spent a bit of time in search of Twite and buntings on the beach without joy. A quick check on our caravan revealed the Barnacle Geese feeding in the field directly behind the pitch.
After a full morning at the point we decided to head for Mersehead for lunch seeing 40+ Fieldfares on the way.

Right: Southerness Point - Just begging for an Ivory Gull!