An American Spotted Sandpiper at Upton Warren

I have seen two Spotted Sandpipers before in the UK neither of which, it has to be said, gave particularly good views. So when one was found by local birder Gert Corfield at Upton Warren nature reserve this morning just 20 minutes from home and said to be showing well it would have been quite rude not to go! I had a couple of jobs to do at home before I left and so arrived on site at 10:30. I had expected the small car park at the Moors end of the reserve to be full but there were a couple of places left when I arrived and I was soon parked up and on my way to the large Lapwing hide.

 

The Spotted Sandpiper breeds near fresh water across most of North America where it essentially replaces our Common Sandpiper. It is the most widespread breeding Sandpiper in  North America. They migrate to the southern United States, the Caribbean and South America for the winter and are rare vagrants to western Europe.  The spottiness varies greatly from individual to individual and I have read that the overall health of Spotted Sandpipers is indicated by the spottiness of the bird. As a vagrant it averages three or four records a year in the UK.

 

The hide was busy with many local birders keen to see what was only the second county record of this bird. It was initially feeding on one of the more distant small islands in front of the hide but after a while it flew to the closest island allowing some very good views. 

With the exception of its heavily spotted breast, it is very similar in appearance and habit to our Common Sandpiper. It was bobbing its tail up and down as it fed  just like its common cousin. The function of the sandpiper tail-bobbing is unknow with guesses ranging from the mildly plausible such as aiding in balancing on rough terrain to the absurd such as pumping body oils over their feathers to improve waterproofing. Outside of the breeding season the Spotted Sandpiper loses the distinctive breast spots and becomes much harder to tell apart from our Common Sandpiper.

 

I watched the Sandpiper feeding for some 90 minutes or so. It did settle down at one point and looked as through it was going to have a snooze but this didn’t last long and it was soon bobbing around feeding again.

 

After taking far too many photos I left the hide as others arrived keen to add the Sandpiper to their county lists. I left in a very upbeat mood pleased at last to get proper views of this characterful little wader.

Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!