Trip away from SS15 - Shoeburyness East Beach, Essex - 9th November 2021

Having seen a number of reports on Facebook and elsewhere regarding the high tide wader roost at Shoeburyness East Beach, I decided to visit the site myself for the first time.

Shoeburyness is a town in south east Essex situated 3 miles east of Southend town centre and it is easily accessible by the c2c train service from my home town of Basildon. It was once a garrison town and still acts as host to MoD Shoeburyness …. see here and here.

Unlike most of Southend’s beaches, the beach at Shoeburyness is a quarter-mile long stretch of mainly sand but with some shingle and shell deposits. Apparently it gets very crowded during the summer time and even on my November visit it was relatively busy with walkers, some with their dogs.

Fortunately, the wader roost of interest to me is located on the other side of the high metal boundary fence to the restricted access MOD Shoeburyness site and therefore the birds remain undisturbed by people or dogs. Whilst access is not possible, excellent views and photography opportunities can be obtained by looking through the fence.

I arrived around 2 hours before high tide on the assumption that the incoming tide would push increasing number of birds off the extensive mudflats. Large numbers of birds were already very evident in 3 distinct blocks: Oystercatchers (including a leucistic individual) the furthest away, Dunlins in the middle and Sanderlings nearest the boundary fence.

The Dunlins were particularly flighty and frequently flew off, swirled around in great numbers before returning to the beach. Occasionally, some of the Sanderlings did the same.

Photo: Dunlins in flight and Sanderlings in the foreground

Photo: Dunlins

Photo: Sanderlings

On the edge of the group of Sanderlings was a much smaller number of Ringed Plovers and typically confiding Turnstones foraged on the shoreline on both sides of the boundary fence.
 
Just offshore, there was a small flock of Dark-bellied Brent Geese plus the occasional fly-over Cormorant.

Photo: Dark-bellied Brent Geese

Photo: Dark-bellied Brent Geese

Photo: Dark-bellied Brent Geese

Photo: Cormorant

The light was relatively poor and it got darker as the afternoon progressed. Nonetheless, I had a successful visit and many of my photos of the wader species (other than Oystercatchers which were too distant) can be found in these separate posts ….

 
Sanderlings
 
Dunlins

Turnstones
 
RingedPlovers

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