Margaret Ellery
Why winter puts the shoreline at its best
Summer beaches are busy, noisy and often empty of birds by mid-morning. Winter is different. The crowds have gone, the light is low and slanted, and the birds that spend the season around our estuaries and rocky shores are genuinely spectacular. Waders arrive in their thousands from Arctic breeding grounds, divers and grebes slip in from northern Europe, and the whole coastline settles into a rhythm set by the tide rather than the clock.
You do not need a reserve or a permit. A public footpath along an estuary, a harbour wall, or a stretch of rocky shore at low water will do. What you need is warm clothing, patience, and a willingness to stand still for twenty minutes at a time.
Work the tide, not the clock
The single most useful thing you can do before a winter shoreline walk is check a tide table. On an estuary, the state of the tide determines everything: where the birds are, how close you can get, and how you should be watching.
- Two hours either side of high tide is the prime window. Waders are pushed off the mudflats and gather at traditional roosts — gravel spits, saltmarsh edges, old sea walls — often in tight, countable flocks. So are the birds that hunt them.
- Low water spreads everything out across the flats. You will need a telescope rather than binoculars, and the birds will be distant but relaxed and feeding hard.
- Spring tides push birds higher and closer than neap tides, but can also flood a roost entirely. Watch where the water line is heading before you settle in.
- Wind direction matters as much as strength. A cold north-easterly flattens the surface on exposed coasts, which is exactly what divers and grebes prefer, but it also drives waders to the sheltered side of a spit.
Waders: the estuary's shifting crowds
Learn a handful of silhouettes and the estuary stops being a blur of grey. Curlew are the giants, with a long, distinctly down-curved bill. Bar-tailed godwit are nearly as tall but have a slightly upturned bill and a neat, pale supercilium. Dunlin are small, busy and usually the most numerous bird on the flats, often mixed with knot in dense, murmuring flocks that lift and wheel as one.
Watch for the fussy ones: redshank, teetering and bobbing, quick to alarm the whole roost. A flash of black and white wings over water usually means oystercatcher, though the birds standing quietly on one leg often go unnoticed for minutes at a time.
On rocky shores the cast changes. Turnstone work the seaweed line, flicking weed aside with a neat sideways action. Purple sandpiper are the winter specialists — grey, dumpy and easy to overlook until one moves — and they often share a rock with rock pipit, which is a bird of the shoreline all year round. Sandy stretches between rocky outcrops will hold sanderling, chasing the retreating water like clockwork toys.
Count in blocks of ten rather than trying for exact totals. Estimating flock sizes accurately is a skill built over years, and a rough figure written down honestly is worth more than a confident number you cannot justify.
Divers, grebes and the calm-water specialists
These are the birds that reward a telescope more than any other group. Divers sit low in the water, often with the bill angled slightly up, and they tend to be spread thinly across a bay rather than concentrated. Red-throated divers are the most likely winter sighting from shore, with a pale, finely speckled back and a habit of holding the head high. Great northern divers are heavier headed and bulkier, and a black-throated diver is a genuine winter treat on a sheltered estuary mouth.
Grebes show the same low profile but dive far more frequently and often in loose, scattered groups. Great crested grebes are the commonest, still elegant in drab winter plumage. Red-necked and Slavonian grebes turn up on quieter estuaries and are worth checking carefully — the shape of the head and the amount of white above the eye are the details that separate them.
Scan slowly, in horizontal strips, from one side of the bay to the other, then start again. Divers surface a long way from where they dived, so a bird you lost five minutes ago may pop up twice as far along the shore. Flat, glassy water on a still, overcast day is your best friend.
Kit that earns its place in the bag
Cold hands ruin more birdwatching trips than bad weather does. Layer properly and you will stay out twice as long.
- Binoculars — 8x42 or similar. Bright and comfortable beats powerful and shaky.
- Telescope — a 20-60x zoom on a sturdy tripod transforms an estuary. Keep a rain cover on it, and carry a microfibre cloth in a dry pocket.
- Clothing — thermal base layer, fleece or wool mid layer, windproof and waterproof shell. A hat that covers the ears and gloves with fold-back fingertips, so you can write without stripping off.
- Comforts — flask, spare socks, a sit mat or dry bag to perch on, and a hand warmer in each pocket.
Arrive with the sun behind you where possible. Sidle into position rather than walking straight at a roost, and use any available cover — a groyne, a bank, a parked car — to break your outline.
Keeping a nature journal you will actually reread
Nature journaling is not about producing beautiful drawings. It is about noticing more, and remembering what you noticed. A small waterproof notebook and a pencil in your coat pocket is all the kit required.
Record the basics every time: date, time, tide state and height, wind direction and strength, cloud cover, and how cold it felt. Then add the birds — species, rough counts, and what they were doing. Feeding, roosting, bathing, squabbling over a mussel bed: behaviour is the part that fades from memory first.
Sketch in three or four strokes. A dunlin is a blob with a bill; a curlew is a blob with a long curve. The value is in the looking, not the likeness. Add a small plan of the shore showing where the water line sat and which way the birds were facing into the wind.
Finish with two or three questions. Why did the godwits all face the same way? What was the redshank alarming at? Then return to the same spot on the same state of tide a month later. The comparisons you build up over a winter — and over several winters — are the real reward, and they are yours alone.
