Day trip to Calais!

Snow Buntings Oye Plage

                                               Crested Larks Bleriot Plage, Calais.

 The Joker, PT and CP invited me to join them on laid back day out around Calais, to hopefully find a couple of Crested Larks, Shorelarks, Snow Buntings and possibly a Twite and Lapland Bunting.
We arrived at Bleriot Plage, Calais to the sound of Fog Horns from the harbour and thick fog. Things weren't looking to hopeful as we split up to search the beach and dunes. I had the easy walk along the flat beach in front of 100s of holidays huts, some of which were virtually buried in the sand drifts caused by the recent storms. The others searched the undulating dunes. After c500mts I saw 3 Crested Larks on the beach in the gloom, I moved back and called out to the others. CP was the first to arrive, I pointed out the 3 and we promptly found 4 more. We all had great views of them and CP found yet another one a little further on, 8 Crested Larks a fantastic result as we were doubtful of even finding the 2 that had been reported on the internet. PT also saw and heard a male Black Redstart which I missed around the old gun emplacements. The omens for the day looked good.  

Brent Goose Le Hemmes de Marck

 Next stop Le Hemmes de Marck where by now the sun had come out. A huge vista of fabulous habitat comprised of salt marsh, sand dunes and sandy beach lay before us, on the down side there were also many shooting pools, each with its own bunker for the French Hunters to blow the legs and wings off any passing birds. We spent several hours searching but hardly scratched the surface of this site, we found a flock of 130+ Linnets, c40 Skylarks a few Reed Buntings, a single Brent Goose probably a gun victim and 5 birds that were probably Shorelark but flew off low and carried on.

 Next stop was Oye Plage where once again we split up to cover as much ground as possible, after walking about 500mts I walked into a Slack and immediately saw a snow storm of c50 Snow Buntings. I texted the others and while waiting for them looked out to the distant sea, where a few Red-throated Divers, Great Crested Grebes, Common Scoter and Gannets flew by, on the shore Ringed Plovers, Dunlin and Sanderling. When they arrived we all had excellent views of the Snow Buntings. I wandered on a bit further in the hope of finding something else but failed, while I was away the Snow Bunting flock was joined by another flock of c20 making 70+ birds, its along time since I saw that many.  

 At the Oye Plage reserve we sat in the hide for a while seeing many Shelduck and Mallard, fewer Wigeon, Teal and Shoveler, 2 Common Snipe, a single Greater Whitefronted Goose among some Greylags and Common Buzzard. We looked in another hide that over looks a super looking pool, which in spring sees Black Winged Stilts, Avocets, Garganey, Black Terns and more but not today. Bizarrely immediately behind the hide are several more pools all with shooting bunkers full of plastic lure ducks. Protect the birds one side of the road, but if they stray to the other side shoot them! As we left site 44 Greater Whitefronted Geese flew over, a great end to really good day out in great company.