As we start to get closer to September and the arrival of the geese we are getting the reserve ready to recieve them. In simple terms this involves making sure that the grass is not too long and that Savoch is nice and wet. To that end when the bearings on the topper have allowed we have been cutting the grass and now that we have finished we have closed the outflow sluices and opened the inlet sluice and water is pouring in. This is making the low ground ideal for feeding waders or though less helpful for those trying to count them.
Whilst the majority of the team were down at Fowlsheugh tidying up after the season I spent some time in the morning trying to count the feeding waders. There was a good selection of birds on the low ground with minimum peaks of 14 ruff, 10 greenshank, 10 snipe, 35 golden plover, 9 black-tailed godwit, 1 green sandpiper and many lapwing and curlew. Whilst scanning the grass and trying to count the ruff my attention was caught by a small wader creeping / hiding in the grass. It was reluctant to show itself well but the views I initially had got my very interested as it was a small long elegant wader. I phoned the office and Diana came and joined me in the hide (along with a decent field guide to try and confirm my suspicions). Over the next hour or so it showed occassionally and we eventually were able to get all the crucial features to confirm my suspicion that this was a Bairds Sandpiper - a small dunlin type wader from North America; key features uncluded small size, short all dak bill, long wings projectings beyond the tip of the tail, slender slim bird, very little white on outer tail feathers when flying and long thin wings with a vey faint white wing bar.
This is the second small American wader in the last seven days (the other being the white rumped sandpiper on 19th August) and is only the second record of this species on the reserve - interestingly the previous record in September 2001 was also preceeded by a white rumped sandpiper.
Away from the Low Ground there was a nice selection of birds in and around Starnafin including two different male great spotted woodpeckers.
Dom
No way - thats as close as anyone is going to get, why break the habit of a life time thats what I say!
Is that Dominic Funnell actually writing a description for a rare bird?