7th May: Pectoral Sandpiper

After a long day out birding with plenty of local specialties, but surprisingly few migrants, perseverence paid off in the end when I got to the second viewing platform at Ham Wall RSPB, plonked the scope down and looked through the eyepiece, right at a Pectoral Sandpiper! It was very distant, and the following photograph takes a bit of imagination to be recognisable. 

Pectoral Sandpipers breed in North America and migrate in Autumn to winter in South America. During this migration they are susceptible to wandering out across the Atlantic and ending up in Europe, most British records are of young birds in Autumn that have made a hash of their first attempt at migration. There are a few spring records every year too, and it is though that these may well be birds that came over the previous autumn, then wintered in Africa or Southern Europe, and are now heading North in attempt to find breeding grounds. They're obviously a pretty tough bird, so it is a fair possibility that if they keep heading up they may eventually make it back home.

Pectoral Sandpiper (if you squint!)

And a different angle, kindly sent to me by Mike Harris

Earlier in the day...

The light was absolutely beautiful on the Avalon Marshes this morning, so I eased off on the birding and concentrated on taking a few photos instead. Here's the best of the bunch from Ham Wall RSPB.

I spent the early afternoon over at Somerset Wildlife Trust's Catcott complex. The area around the small peat diggings in the woods was literally buzzing with insects, including my first Broad-bodied Chaser of the year, a stunning looking Dragonfly.

female Broad-bodied Chaser

Large Red Dameselfy