It was an overcast and cloudy morning as I packed the car for a morning on the south bank of the river Humber at the RSPB reserve at Blacktoft Sands. It is a good thirty minute journey from home driving through old Goole and the outlying villages adjacent to the river.

It was just after 9.45am when I arrived in the car park at the reserve. There was just the occasional spot of rain on the windscreen, the car temperature gauge was showing 15C so it wasn’t too bad.

After exchanging pleasantries with the warden in the Reception hide I made my way round to the Marshland Hide, it is just a few minutes’ walk along the gravelled track. The hide is a wide single storey wooden building with good views of the reed beds.  There was a couple of bird watchers already in the hide when I arrived and they stayed there for the duration of my stay. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount and variety of birdlife on the surrounding mudflats in front of the hide, so much different to what I am used to seeing at RSPB Fairburn Ings.  

The first birds that struck me were the large numbers of female Shoveler ducks feeding in the shallow water in front of the hide, next were the Lapwings, such lovely looking birds especially when they catch the light, they always make me smile with the large tuft of hair on the top of their head, considering they are on the ‘red list’ due to the decline in their numbers they seem to be thriving here on the mudflats, though this is their ideal habitat I suppose. A little further away from the hide over in the top left hand corner on a small island were three Little Egrets probing their long beaks into the mud in search of food. A pair of Grey Heron stood motionless on the far bank in front of the reed beds. There must have been at least twenty to twenty five pairs of Teal either sleeping and if not sleeping then busily feeding.  

There were lots of Spotted Redshank, Ruff and Godwits busily feeding in the shallow water on the edge of the mud flats, all birds that I am not too familiar with and had to get my little book out to identify them! The highlight of the morning though was watching the Spoonbills, a pair of them flew in from the area of the Reception hide and stopped in front of the hide for a good thirty minutes. After about an hour in the hide just as I was about to move on, a pair of Pied Wagtails flew in and landed on the edge of the left hand island so I stayed a little longer and watched them as I unclipped the camera prior to packing it away. 

Time was creeping on so at 10.45am I walked back towards the reception but stopped off at the ‘Xerox Hide’ for the remainder of the morning. This hide has a similar outlook to the ‘Marshland Hide’ but a double decker hide. There were six birders already in the hide on the lower level, so rather than disturb them I headed up the stairs and set the camera gear up on the left hand side of the hide. There must have been several hundred Lapwings on the mudflats outside of the hide which made quite a sight, within minutes of my arrival a Buzzard flew over and scattered the lot, needless to say when the threat of danger had passed they all returned back to the mudflats. Along with the Lapwing were similar numbers of Ruff and Greenshank. It made quite a sight. On the lake were several dozen Mallard ducks and their hybrids. As lunch time approached I decided to call it a day and head back to the car. It certainly made a pleasant change from my usual visit to my regular reserve and hopefully not to long before I can make a return visit. In the mean time I must brush up on my ‘wader’ identification, now where did I put that book?