A big spring tide on a warm afternoon is a good time to watch the waders, gulls and terns gather on the shore. There is a regular post-breeding congregation of Sandwich terns and their raucous calls fill the blustery air. The terns fly up and down the shoreline and out into the bay sometimes returning with a fish for a young that still begs for food even though it is now fully fledged and an adept flier. One young Sandwich tern repeatedly joins a wheeling flock of dunlins and ringed plovers, another makes repeated shallow splashes into the sea with no attempt at catching anything, more to dunk itself in the water. Behind the ness, the tide half submerges the saltmarsh and the curlews gather at the top end. There is a fly by by a marsh harrier which hardly causes a stir but no hunting peregrine today for which the reaction would have been one of total panic.