Working in a Wader Wonderland

One of the great things about working at a site like Frampton can be the variety of birds. Particularly of wading birds. Being right next to The Wash, with its acres of mud flats, means that we get more than our fair share of waders. indeed, I might be bold enough to say that we are the best site for waders in the entire RSPB!

Every year there is a little competition between RSPB reserves, as to who can spot the most wader species. Strict rules apply, such as the bird having to be on the ground (no fly-overs) in an area that is managed, such as a scrape (so on the beach or the mudflats off Freiston don't count). Up until now, the monthly record was held by, well gosh, us! We have hit 27 wader species a couple of times, but we have always felt we could do better...

Well, in September we did.

September is always a good month for waders, with summer birds lingering on and the first of the autumn migrants arriving. So as the month rolled along we built up a solid total. All the regular species came in and were ticked off, and we kept getting rarer birds too. Pectoral sandpiper and Temminck's stint turned up on the same weekend. A dotterel was a brief (but welcome) visitor. So with 4 days left to go we had hit 27 species, yet again.

Then, out with the tractor, Jim flushed a jack snipe. These small waders are probably with us more than they are seen. They rely on camouflage to keep safe, staying put until you are almost on top of them. Previously we've scoured the wet grassland looking for them, but never managed to find any. So this was a good spot.

 Jack Snipe by Paul Sullivan

Then, excitement! On the sunday I got a text from Toby our warden asking if I knew anything about a report of buff-breasted sandpiper which had come up on the birdwatchers' pager service. I didn't at the time, but before long the finder had come into the visitor centre to tell us all about it. Buff-breasted sandpipers normally live in North America, so this one had got a little lost. They do turn up every now and again on the west coast of Britian, but are a lot rarer in the East, so this was great. More importantly, it put us onto an earth-shaking 29 species for the month, smashing all previous records! The bird itself has been around for a few days now, hanging out with a small party of ruff. Mostly on the wet grassland but sometimes venturing over to the freshwater scrapes

 Buff-breasted sandpiper by Tim Lenz (taken in USA)

We wait to see how we have fared in the reserves competition this year. But one thing is certain, we'll be very hard to beat!