A Marsh Sandpiper pays a visit to my old stomping ground

A Marsh Sandpiper pays a visit to my old stomping ground – pit 60 at Standlake

Distant record shot of Marsh Sandpiper

Prior to moving to our smallholding under the Malvern Hills some 5 years ago I spent many a happy hour in the Langley Lane bird hide at Pit 60 near Standlake. So when a rare Marsh Sandpiper was identified there on Friday morning from a photo taken the previous day I immediately started thinking about a visit.

We were looking after our two eldest grandchildren while their parents were at work over the weekend and I had already promised a Friday morning visit to Dirty Donuts, their favourite café, in Malvern. Now there was no way I was going to let the boys down, doubly so because the donuts baked and filled on site are absolutely to die for!

My Oxon birding pal, Nick, was working that morning but was planning to go with his wife Anne that afternoon so I arranged to meet them in the hide. They were already there when I arrived around 2:30 pm and Nick showed me the Sandpiper through his scope located distantly on the west bank under the reeds.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the old gravel pit in generally good condition with ample margins for waders and with the vegetation, particularly the reeds and willows, seemingly being well managed. This was in quite stark contrast to the rather dilapidated state it had got into just before I moved away with uncontrolled vegetation taking over the whole shoreline.

I’ve only ever seen one Marsh Sandpiper in the UK before, a distant bird at Rainham Marshes in 2018. It rates as an 2 star rarity in the Colins bird bible equating to one or a few per year. It is a delicate Sandpiper which breeds on the Russian steppe and is migratory with the majority of birds over wintering in Africa and India. It resembles a small Greenshank with its most obvious characteristics being a long fine bill and very long yellowish legs. The Standlake bird was a juvenile, i.e. hatched this spring, and as such had dark upperparts, a bright white breast and a diffuse white supercilium. There have been two juvenile Marsh Sandpipers in England recently, one in Devon and one in Wales and the Standlake bird is believed to be the relocating Devon bird.

Apart from a brief visit to one of the small islands, the Marsh Sandpiper spent the whole time we were there distant on the west shore where it was alternatively feeding or preening.

After a couple of hours we decided to walk back to our cars and got there just in time to avoid a thunderstorm.

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

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