The Standlake Birder

     Hudsonian Godwit I was planning to visit Rachel, my lovely middle daughter, and her family in Sale on Tuesday but she unfortunately had a bad migraine so we rearranged the visit for later in the week.   Suddenly, presented with a free day, I checked RBA and, with nothing rare to temp me, thought about some local birding. C and I were drinking coffee around 10:00 and I was bemoaning the lack of rarities this year compared to last when a report of a mega rare Hudsonian Godwit at Burton Mere RSPB reserve in Cheshire hit the headlines. Needing this for my UK list, rapid apologies and packing the car followed and off I went in the usual twitcher mixed state of excitement and apprehension. It should have been a 2 hour journey but the M6 was at its horrific worst and I didn’t arrive until just before 1pm. The bird had been continuously reported in a large flock of Godwits viewed from the Border hide some 30 minutes’ walk from the visitors centre.  What followed was the usual progression

      Baird's Sandpiper Well not really but you get my drift! I’ve only seen one rare American Baird’s Sandpiper in the UK, a  bird I saw on a trip with Jeremy to the south coast in 2017. The views were distant and heat hazy as this heavily cropped picture taken with my 800 mm lens shows. It hence resides in my well populated seen badly UK list category. So when one was found on the Welsh coast near Newport only an hour or so from home off I went off to try and see it on Sunday morning.   Bairds Sandpiper Lynch Cove Sept 2017 Somewhat surprisingly, given that it is only some 60 minutes from home, I have never visited the RSPB nature reserve on the Newport Wetlands or the nearby Goldcliffe Lagoons. I stupidly didn’t check the location details properly, you would have think I would have learned my lesson by now, and first went to the RSPB reserve where one of the volunteers redirected me to the extensive sea wall at nearby Goldcliffe.    Observing the Sandpiper on the extensive mudfl