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The Snettisham Spectacular

What is it?

The "Snettisham Spectacular" occurs at very high tides. The waders (mostly knot and oystercatcher) are forced off the mudflats and into the air, flying past or over the RSPB reserve on the shore.

Visitors can see tens of thousands of birds circling together over the flats, and then groups of them will break away and fly much closer to the shore.

The whole thing lasts less than two hours.

When to go

The RSPB website gives details of when suitable tides are likely to occur. At other times, the tides are not high enough and the birds will stay out of sight on the flats.

Lenses and Equipment

A moderate telephoto lens (eg a 70-200mm) is idea to photograph the birds as they circle over the mudflats, or to catch individual birds as they fly overhead to get to the RSPB Reserve.

You might be able to photograph individual birds on the flats with a long telephoto, but range is likely to be a problem. The images here of the egret were taken with a 500mm f4, a 1.4 teleconverter and a crop-sensor DSLR (equivalent to more than 1000mm on a full frame 35mm) and they're still heavily cropped.

There's a walk of about a mile and a half from the carpark to the observation point, so think carefully about how much weight you really need to carry.

There's plenty of space at the observation point (unlike the hides on the reserve).

Clumber Park

Lime Tree Avenue at Clumber Park, near Worksop.

October 2011.