Stilt Sandpiper : Sandbach Flashes : 4th September 2013

Stilt Sandpiper : Sandbach Flashes : 4th September 2013

I had been looking at the Bird News Anywhere web site for any interesting birds near to us and had spotted the appearance of a Stint Sandpiper on Ashton Flash at Sandbach Flashes and since it had been spotted for a couple of days in a row we decided to use a spare morning to check this bird out. It was useful that there had already been a reported sighting just five minutes before we set off.By the time we got there, there were already a few birders there and we even ran into a couple of our birding group friends who had come to check it out. Helpfully they all already had the bird in their scope. The bad news was that it was all the way at the back of the flash mixed in with some Snipe. On the positive side it was the only bird moving about so it was possible to locate it even though in the distance.

Even at the distance it was possible to make out the long, yellowy-green legs and long black bill. Helpfully all the Snipe and the Sandpiper were disturbed and when they landed, they did so a little closer and “our” bird chose to stand at the very end of a spit of land. We watched it for about an hour and slowly it started to show its features, the long blunt bill, the mottled plumage and speckled rump but also, most importantly, the sun occasionally reflected off its prominent  supercillium. Eventually it started preening and then eating and this then enabled us to see its “sewing machine” type of eating – sometimes referred to as typical of Dowitchers.

There were quite a few Snipe and Teal and a couple of Buzzards flew overhead but this bird was the reason for us going there and, in the end, we were pretty happy that we had had a chance to see a very rare bird. One of the chaps there said that the last time one had been seen in the area was 1984. According to the BTO web site the most recent UK sighting was in 2006 in Wales. It also says that the total number of records between 1950-2007 was 22. It is described in the uk as “accidental”