Wading birds, ducks and boats at Two Tree nature reserve, Essex

In the middle of September my camera took me on a train journey to Leigh-on Sea in Essex.  I had decided, on a lovely sunny day, to visit the Two Tree Island nature reserve that is on the outskirts of the town.

When I arrived it was low tide in the estuary and the boats were all grounded.

I walked along a ridge along the side of the estuary to the end of the reserve, where there was a bird hide that overlooked a lagoon.  To my delight, standing in the lagoon were a large number of mainly sleepy redshanks.  A group of them were standing in the water in front of one of the islands in the lagoon.

There were redshanks and lapwings on another little island in the lagoon. 

In the distance on the other side of the estuary there were six Little Egrets.  Unfortunately they were too far away for the zoom lens on my camera and appear as tiny white blobs.

When I walked away from the hide and back along the ridge above the edge of the estuary I saw a curlew digging away in the mud in front of one of the grounded boats.

After a little while the curlew headed over to a pool of water on the mud and had a bath.  In the photograph below it is scratching it's head with it's foot.

I then went for a walk into Leigh-on-Sea and had fish and chips while sitting outside in the sunshine.  I decided to go back to Two Tree Island for another look round.  The tide was in by this time and, when I walked down the jetty, I found a black-tailed godwit.  In this photo is on the right near the edge of the estuary.

I took rather a lot of photos of the godwit and managed to get some close-ups.  In this photo, the black-tailed godwit has caught a small something that it is holding at the very end of it's beak.

I had another walk along the ridge above the estuary from where I saw what appears to be a juvenile lapwing.

There was also a little egret wading in the river.

A redshank was fishing.

Before I went home I went round the other side of the Two Tree Island nature reserve.  In the late afternoon sunshine, from a hide that was quite high up, I found a large group of teal in the water below.

Further round the island lots of curlews had settled down for the night.

As an added extra, when I was walking back to the road through the nature reserve, I saw this furry caterpillar.  I have no idea what it is - any comments?

I had a great day out at this nature reserve and wish I lived nearer so that I could visit it more often.