David Tipling
David is a wildlife photographer and author renowned for his artistic images of birds. He is an OM System Ambassador and hosts wildlife photography tours and workshops in Norfolk: norfolkphotosafaris.com. See more of his work at www.davidtipling.com
There is a place on our shores which hosts one of the world’s great nature spectacles, attracting birders and photographers from far and wide: the autumn gathering of red knot (knot). The Wash, a vast tidal bay separating Norfolk from Lincolnshire and bordering the North Sea, attracts over 100,000 of these wading birds, a species that nests in the Arctic. Many use our coasts and estuaries to feed in winter but in autumn freshly arrived from the far north, they gather to take advantage of rich feeding grounds that the mudflats offer.
The spectacle occurs on Spring Tides which have nothing to do with spring, but occur when the sun, Earth and moon are aligned forming a strong gravitational pull creating the highest tides. When these occur the mud and large parts of the
