Every autumn the water levels are lowered on Radipole Lake. This means that we get plenty of exposed mud outside the visitor centre which then means that we get lots of birds. Other visitor centre staff and myself were chatting the other day about what wader was going to use the mud first. We mentioned Common Sandpiper and Dunlin as well as Godwits, but one species we didn’t mention was Pectoral Sandpiper!
In fact it was second to use the mud, the first was a Green Sandpiper which is a migrant wader that passed through on its southward migration though a few of these are spending their winter in the UK including Radipole Lake and Lodmoor.
The Pectoral Sandpiper is a small wader which breeds in arctic Canada and spends its winter in South America. This one arrived during the week on Portland where it spent a few days at a very strange location. A small area of grass surrounded by houses! It was very tame as presumably had never seen humans before, which allowed some great photos to be taken. Here’s one I managed on Wednesday evening.
It’s now feeding happily in a more familiar habitat and is finding plenty of food so hopefully it will stick around for a few more days for lots of visitors to enjoy. Its spent the whole of today feeding right outside the visitor centre giving great views to a very appreciative crowd.