I've made a few trips over to Shellness on the Isle of Sheppey recently, where there is a national nature reserve. A colony of little terns breeds there, Sandwich terns and ringed plovers can be abundant, and an enormous colony of oystercatchers is found on the shell-covered beach at high tide.

As the tide went out on a recent visit, the oystercatchers progressively left the beach and flew out on to the newly exposed mudflats to get their fill of invertebrates.

Just off the coast of Sheppey is the Kentish Flats windfarm, sitting close to the migration routes of the vast numbers of shorebirds that migrate to and from the shallow tidal waters of the Swale and Thames Estuary and the North Kent marshes. The location of the wind farm has always worried me*, even though the need for renewable energy is greater than ever.

From where I was standing, large numbers of birds passed in front of the distant wind farm, and the photograph here shows a group of oystercatchers on their way to the mudflats.

To me, there is something resonant in this picture that sums up human intrusion into the environment of wild birds, even where there are few humans around.

Oh … and SF6 anyone?

FWIW, the picture was made with a Nikon D500, 70-200mm f/2.8 + TC-20E III.

*I should acknowledge that surveys of the windfarm are generally pretty reassuring about the limited impact of the windfarm on birdlife.