With a Bank Holiday weekend fast approaching with a sequence of depressions hurtling like a magnet towards to the UK, the forecast for this morning was nigh on perfect for some large format work but, and there always is a but, low tide was not due at Cattawade Creek until 0830. The forecast for Monday is dire so I opted to go out to Shotley and attempt a re-shoot of what I did last August Bank Holiday Monday.

I never expected the conditions to be the same, they never are and all photographs are a matter of history, time that has passed by the time the shutter closes. 0430 was too late to get up. I realised that as I drove down the peninsula with the exquisite cyan and ink blues of the pre-sunrise sky receding as I journeyed towards Shotley. Surprise number one was the field entrance from where I normally shoot was a dumping ground for pilling tubes. Ah well, needs must, I shuffled up a few yards and got going.

It turns out that it is electricity supply work so I expect a pylon or tower as they call them to get in the way at some point…

After this I upped anchor and scuttled over to Cattawade where the tide was not quite out but out enough. I marvelled at the grey heron fishing in the creek as I set up. I have taken to setting up a sound recorder as I work on these large format series these days and just after I’d exposed my second sheet of Kodak film, I heard a distinctive sound and then the flash of blue from more or less underneath my feet, followed by a fluttering of orange underbelly whilst it hovered over the creek. My first sighting of an autumnal estuarine Kingfisher. Well worth getting out of bed for even if I did miss the earlier light over Felixstowe.

I reckon I may have got my mojo back…