Promising weather was forecast for Thursday, so I drove to the Glamorgan Heritage Coast in South Wales, just over an hour from home. It's a wonderful stretch of Jurassic coast backed by dramatic Blue Lias cliffs, with wide, clean, sandy beaches and dramatic headlands such as Nash Point.
A watery November sun shone low over the Bristol channel the whole day and although the tide was on the way up, it allowed me a few hours for some pleasurable beach photography. I had walked about three miles along the beach between Nash Point and Dunraven Bay before turning back along the beach towards my car. By this time the tide was pretty high, up to the boulder line under the cliffs, and dusk was coming on but I knew there was a ladder up the cliffs further along so stuck to the beach.
I'd spotted a few gulls and pairs of oystercatchers on the way out and snapped a couple of unsatisfactory distant shots of them with the 300mm + 1.4x converter set up I had with me, just for the practice. On the way back, with dusk fast approaching, I had given all thoughts of further photographs when I came across this flock of perhaps fifty birds settling down to roost amongst the rocks. They were right in my path and I had no choice but to disturb them but I managed to get the telephoto strapped to the camera before I slowly stalked up to them. They eventually flew off and I managed to grab a few flight shots, of which this is the best.
There is lovely soft evening light in the image and the birds are fortuitously turned with wings mostly on the downbeat to show off their striking black and white plumage but we can still see the red eyes, orange bills and just the odd pair of dolly pink legs. It's a habitat shot too, giving a feel for the wild coastline and the surf. But what makes it stand out from the others in the shoot, is the slight separation of birds in the middle that grabs the attention and saves the shot from being just a jumble of flying birds.
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