Skip to main content

A Spotted Sandpiper at Chew Valley Lake

       
On Wednesday I visited Chew Valley Lake hoping to see an American Spotted Sandpiper. Chew Valley Lake is a reservoir near Chew Stoke in Somerset and is the fifth-largest artificial lake in the United Kingdom, with an area of 1,200 acres. The lake was created in 1950 and now supplies most of the water to Bristol and the surrounding area. It is unusually shallow creating an excellent habitat for birds, with some 260 species recorded to date, and is designated a Site of Specific Scientific Interest  (SSSI).

 

The Sandpiper was located at Herriott’s pool adjacent to the main reservoir where it had been present for two days alternating between feeding on the shoreline viewable from a layby and resting up on a much more distant wooded island. Only part of the shoreline is viewable from the layby with the rest obscured behind a thick hedge.

 

The Spotted Sandpiper is the American cousin of our Common Sandpiper and in non-breeding plumage they are quite hard to tell apart. In breeding plumage, however, it transforms into an attractive little wader with, yes you guessed it, a prominent spotted breast. I’ve seen both summer and winter plumage birds before but that did nothing to diminish my enthusiasm for seeing, and hopefully photographing, this eye catching wader again.

 

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.

 

When I arrived a few other birders were stretching their necks trying to see up the obscured shoreline where the bird was said to be feeding. So it was a game of hope and patience waiting for the bird to walk along the observable shoreline. After perhaps 30 minutes it was spotted (sic)  making its way toward us along the water’s edge pecking, very much like our Common Sandpiper, at invertebrates. 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.

 

It walked almost towards the assembled admirers then turned around and walked back into the obscured area. A short while later it flew across the lake and landed on the distant small wooded island where I suspected it would stay a while.

 

I decided to go for a gentle stroll at the nearby Ham Wall RSPB reserve and return later hopefully when it had come back to feed. Ham Wall had a summer feel to it with tall reeds and vegetation  obscuring views but providing great habitat for breeding birds. On the way back to the car park I heard an insistent cheeping call which was coming from a newly fledged Garden Warbler family telling their parents to hurry up and feed them! Considering the date, 28th May, it struck me as being very early for them to have fledged. A little research told me that the eggs take an average of 10 days to hatch fledging around 10 days later. So this puts egg laying around 8th May, quite plausible as they arrive from Africa around mid-April.

    

       

   


      
    

Back at Chew Valley the Sandpiper was again feeding on the shoreline. This time it came even closer but the sun directly into the camera lens tested my photography and post processing skills but I was still very pleased with the results. After 30 minutes or so the sandpiper flew back to its woody Island which was my cue to leave.



 

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

 

Comments

  1. Ben SheldonMay 30, 2025 at 9:10 AM

    You don't label them, but your text describes a Reed Warbler family and the pictures are Garden Warblers

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. jim HutchinsMay 30, 2025 at 9:50 AM

      thanks Ben, obviously didn't proof read that very well!!!!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Albert the Albatross

  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 attacked and killed in the area by two eagles.    Reports of his death were clearly greatly exaggerated!   The Black-browed Albatross is ci...
2 comments
Read more

The Hawfinches of the Forest of Dean

   Hawfinch - Forest of Dean, winter 2017 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 thought to be driven by a combination of breeding success and local crop failure resulting in not enough food to go around.    Records indi...
3 comments
Read more

A visit to see a controversial Canvasback and thoughts on its provenance

   Canvasback ( its the one with the long black beak) curtsey of Nick Truby   Ornamental ducks are perhaps the most difficult and controversial birds that are on the current  British bird list. They are widely kept in collections and as such differentiating a genuine wild vagrant from an escapee is extremely challenging and sometimes impossible. I’ve discussed the issue of proving a birds provenance before, see here , but in summary a ring or isotopic analysis of a sample are required to prove beyond all doubt that the bird is a genuine vagrant. In the absence of this objective evidence of origin much more subjective factors are used to prove that the bird is “probably” a genuine wild bird. You could, however,  strongly argue that in the absence of the definitive evidence above, none of these ornamental ducks should be on the UK list of accepted wild birds   The Canvasback is the North American cousin of our common Pochard and is kept in some UK o...
1 comment
Read more