As we were watching the Black Kite, news came out on my pager that the Baird's Sandpiper was showing at Hayle, so we jumped in the car and headed off...but just fifteen minutes down the road another message came out saying it had flown on to the estuary. So we returned to our cottage and packed up our kit before setting off for Hayle, hoping beyond hope that the bird would be relocated before we got there.
Unfortunately, it hadn't! Despite spending over an hour scanning the estuary we could not locate the bird, though we did see five Knot and a couple of Little Stints. Also out on the mud, both Black-tailed Godwit and Bar-tailed Godwit, a couple of Sandwich Terns, and a handful of Turnstones. We also stumbled across another wader feeding in the short vegetation which Nigel and I studied, knowing was different from the surrounding Dunlins, and it was! We had located a Pectoral Sandpiper, a real unexpected bonus!
At 1.00pm the heaven's opened again and so we took this as an omen to quit whilst we were ahead and so after a great couple of days I bid my farewells to Paul, Nigel and Mickey and drove back home and the boys headed off back to Reading and beyond!
UK list for 2011 now at 254 species.
No comments:
Post a Comment