Skip to main content

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!    

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 6, 2023 at 1:12 AM

    What a great sighting for UW.Will be looking to see if it is still there later this week.🤞

    ReplyDelete
  2. PatriciaJune 7, 2023 at 1:44 AM

    Lovely photos. Thanks also for the info on this visitor!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Tuscan Spring

Hoopoe Sometime in January we decided enough (rain and mud) was enough and to preserve our sanity we booked a spring holiday in our favourite part of Europe, Tuscany. The lack of blogs in the past month or so reflects the fun I’ve been having recently starting with an horrific dental abscess resulting in a late night visit to an emergency dentist. The dentist sorted out the abscess but in return seems to have given me some horrific bug which was the worst I’ve had for many a year and laid me low for two weeks. Three covid test were all negative so perhaps it was just a dose of flu followed by a chest infection – man flu is a truly terrible thing! Luckily, I had just about recovered in time for our Tuscan holiday.   A two hour flight to Pisa with BA followed by  a two hour drive delivered us to our villa on the outskirts of Castagneto Carducci at mid-afternoon on Monday 15 th  April. This is going to sound very snobbish but it was the first time for at least 20 years ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Albert the Albatross

    High quality framed and unframed prints available at   https://www.etsy.com/shop/BirdlifeStudio If you don't see what you want please ask! What is more improbable -   a)     England’ football team    beating Germany in the knockout stages of a major competition   b)     Seeing an Albatross in England   Actually the answer is a) because it has not happened since 1966 rather than b) as Albert the Albatross, as he is affectionally known, has made a number of passing visits to the UK since 1967!   On Monday evening reports started to emerge of Albert associating with the Gannet colony at RSPB Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, almost one year after his    last brief visit to the same site. During the intervening period there have been a number of sightings of Albert across Europe, particularly from the Baltic Sea where he appears to have spent much of the last 12 months. In fact there were reports that he had been att...
2 comments
Read more

The Hawfinches of the Forest of Dean

   Hawfinch - Forest of Dean, winter 2017 High quality framed and unframed prints available at   https://www.etsy.com/shop/BirdlifeStudio If you don't see what you want please ask! A highlight of my winter birding is my annual trip to the Forest of Dean to see Hawfinches. I was unable to go last year due to the post-Christmas lockdown so this year’s visit was even more richly anticipated than normal.   Parkend in the Forest of Dean is my usual chosen location for watching Hawfinches. Here the proven technique of using your car as a hide normally works well. I must also say that,  after a number of quite strenuous twitches recently, I was also looking forward to a much more leisurely birding session!   The story of Hawfinches in the UK is, to my mind at least, a fascinating one. It is what is known as an eruptive species meaning that it occasionally erupts from its traditional breeding grounds to invade on mass countries much further away. This is thoug...
3 comments
Read more