Tollesbury Wick

Thursday (3 Oct 2024) was forecast to be a nice day.  We decided to go to either Wallasea Island, or Tollesbury Wick.  The latter is a bit closer and won the argument.  We arrived at the end of the road, with Google Maps telling us that the wick was just over the river.  We decided to walk along the England Coastal Path.  Then I spotted a sign that said the road floods, so with the tide coming in first, I moved the car.

Tollesbury is where Fellowship Afloat keep their old light ship.  That's not what we had come to see.  We had come to do some bird watching.  From that perspective, the day was a marked failure.

We saw: 

Pigeons
Gulls

Mallards

A white bird obscured by vegetation and too far away to make an identification - possibly a snowy egret.
Some sort of hawk, too far away even with binoculars to even see a proper profile.

We heard Robins, Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Rook, Chaffinch.

As you go further out, there are boats moored, and we caught up with a man who was struggling to walk and keen to get back to his boat before high tide, which was about an hour away.  He told us some of how he ended up on a dilapidated boat, and how bad Southend had become for drug addicts.  It was a sad story, and there was nothing we could do to help.  We wandered on as he crossed the marshes and looked back enough to know he made it to the boat.  The walk was a 'there and back'.  After we turned around, we met a man with too dogs, one a Labrador. It was carrying a large stick, much too long for it really, and regularly swimming. We spoke for a bit, and he said he would rather be sitting outside the Loft drinking coffee.  He shrugged and continued on his way.  We did not venture into the EWT hide, it didn't seem worth it.  I wonder if all the birds prefer the custom build wetlands and have abandoned this area?

We got back on land, at about high tide, the road had not flooded this time, although if the tide was much higher it would, so I count that as a good decision.  We went into the Loft for a light lunch.  The owner (?), saw us come in, but seemed to forget about us and was quite surprised so 10 minutes or more later to see us sitting there.  Still, the Dal soup was good, and we took some rhubarb cake, made with local rhubarb, to sit on a seat to eat and watch the infrequent birds. 

Then we walked along the coastal path on the other side of the road and round past the sewage works (smelly) and back into the village along the road.  Time for an experimental shot or two of the remaining winter food.

I tried to focus on the rose hips closest to me and just to the left of centre, and the branch they were on.  The focus is not great, but better than I have achieved before.