Wallasea Island RSPB
11th January 2025
Some members of the Baddow Camera Club are keen bird watchers, so a pre-dawn trip to Wallasea Island RSPB reserve was planned to look for short eared owls, or SEOs as they are known by twitchers. It turned out we had chosen one of the coldest days this year with temperatures below freezing. As a result, the vegetation was covered in beautiful haw frost, but there were very few birds to be seen in the sky, and no SEOs. After about an hour, our finger tips were tingling in pain. The beautiful sun rise which had started the day had gone, and the sun was hidden by sea mist which was freezing our faces. We persevered in our hunt for SEOs for another hour and then chose to warm up in our cars and head for breakfast. Here are a selection of photos from this trip. The photo above shows a murmuration in progress, being watched by what I think was a peregrine falcon perched in a tree.
Since I did not see too many birds to photograph, I focussed my attention on the thistles and other seed heads, and on the ice crystals beneath my feet.
The landscape of the marshes is riddled with waterways, with intriguing little islands. The smaller pools of water were still covered in ice.
Eventually a flock of geese flew by in formation, but the cold must have frozen my brain so I could not respond fast enough to change my camera settings to get the birds in sharp relief. This is why one has to practise a lot because photographing birds in flight is a very tricky thing to do.
So attention returned to our near birdless surroundings.
When we could see no more, we headed back to our cars.
On the drive out of the reserve, one passes an old boathouse which features in many photographs of the area. So we stopped here as the light was shining on the shed, and a couple of swans came along to hiss at us.
For breakfast we drove to Battlesbridge, to the Barge Inn which was not as warm as we were hoping for, but served tasty breakfast sandwiches. The photos below were taken from the bridge.
I have been out with camera club friends before to photograph birds, and it is always a challenge. But the weather conditions today were extreme and I shall not do this again until it warms up a bit!
