This is not what I was expecting, seeing at least 20 Chinese photographers, plus birders all present along the seawall this morninng. As I made my way out on the mudflats the guy in the photo above smiled and nodded to me as we see each other every morning. I reached the tide line and began scanning in the distance to see what the state of tide was like and the tide was approaching fast and high today. I began scanning through the nearby flock of Dunlin and Red Necked Stints and soon enough and picked up the first Spoon Billed Sandpiper of the day and when I alerted Dong there was an all mighty rush of photographers and birders who just run straight passed me and towards the flock in front of me. I told them not to run and not get any closer but they didn't listen and just went straight in without any sign of caution and , yep, you guessed it, they flushed the whole flock. I walked off on my own and re-found the flock agin and started scanning through the Wader's. The 2nd Spoon Billed Sandpiper of the day showed itself and yet again the photographers had caught up with me and yet again just run at the flock of which flushed again! I got annoyed with this but kept scanning through the flocks of Waders being quickly pushed up by the tide and not before long all of the mudflats were totally underwater and I was back on the seawall.
I decided to see if I could get any flight shots of the Waders that were flying past and overhead towards the roosting area the other side of the sea wall. The best I could do was these Far Eastern Curlew shot's. Above and below.
I sat out the high tide on the Sea wall on the grassy bank and stuck my iPhone n and listened to some tunes whilst a lot of people went over in to the high tide roost but I didn't bother as I knew I wouldn't be able to get close to the birds, it was awful light, there was a heat shimmer and there were plenty of other people there and so it just wasn't my "Cup of Tea". After nearly 2 hours the first area's of exposed mud became visible and so I walked quite away from the main group and I headed out on to the mud. There was a small mixed group of Dunlin & Red necked Stint's and I began to scan through them. I could see the that a large volume of the photographer's were quite a way off running in to other flocks and just making a sheer fiasco of the whole situation. I did notice there was 2 Chinese birders nearby and when I picked up a Spoon Billed Sandpiper (photo below) I beckoned them over and after a short while they both saw the bird and were smiling so that was good. Shortly after this the tide had retreated to far to follow and I headed back to the hotel. Dong and Jing Li were guiding the American couple to the area of the fish ponds and later that afternoon I joined them for a civilised stroll along the forest track. It was here that I learnt that the photographers were exactly that, just photographers and were not birders and also were not able to identify birds and they just took photos. I just want to say here that it was just pure carnage out on the mudflats this morning and I just hope tomorrow is a different story. I was advised that the photographers would not be there as they only visit on Saturdays. Bring on tomorrow. 
