This weekend's highlight has been yet another wader, but this one's a bit special. A first for the reserve, a buff-breasted sandpiper found on Friday afternoon and here throughout Saturday at least. It's a North American wader, and amazingly, there are about 50 in Britain and Ireland at the moment, brought here by ex-Hurricane Katia (there were 15 together at Loup Head in Ireland, which is remarkable!).
There used to be millions of buff-breasted sandpipers in the world, but now there may be as few as 16,000 pairs. They were at the brink of extinction by the 1920s after years of converting grassland to agriculture and then hunting, as Europeans headed west across North America. They're in better shape now, thanks to grassland reserves in the mid-West, but the habitat that's left is just a fraction of what it used to be. So, although our buff-breasted sandpiper is not even classed as 'rare' by British standards (a dozen or more turn up on our shores each year), it's one of the most threatened species at a global level that we've had here.
The supporting cast of waders has been pretty good too: 3 spotted redshanks, 2 ruffs and curlew sandpiper today, at least 5 greenshanks yesterday. Add to that our first black tern of the year this morning, which appears to have flown straight through, and it's been one of those "you don't know what's going to happen next" sort of days. On Thursday, the highlight had been a nuthatch, a rare bird on a reserve with few mature trees.
The summer migrants are still dribbling through: lots of chiffchaffs, swallows and house martins, and a few wheatears and whitethroats. With more low pressure forecast over the next few days, who knows what more we'll find taking shelter and feeding-up at Conwy.
Julian HughesSite Manager, Conwy