The Scillies and the Northern Isles are still picking up all of the goodies this Autumn, leaving thin pickings on the mainland. It does come to something when you have a full day to go anywhere in, say, 3 hours drive and you're struggling to find a tempting target. Norfolk is dead as a dodo, Kent has a few nice birds, the long-staying ones I've already got though, Midlands only has an American wigeon, so I opted for Dorset. First stop was down at the Bill, hoping for a bit of movement on the sea.There was a clustering of sea watchers at the observatory early-doors but apart from a good number of gannets and a few auks there was nothing on the sea or indeed on the land. So, I left at 9 to go to Abbotsbury for a long-staying spotted sandpiper. Nice bird, I've seen few before and a lot in their homeland of America but not had one for a couple of years here. As I was leaving though RBA came up with "no sign". With the swannery only 20 minutes away and nothing else to tempt me I carried on. The big down side of twitching here is the entry fee - £10! Still, when I got the entrance desk and told the nice lady I was there for their star bird she radioed down to the warden who confirmed it has just been seen. I handed over my money and headed down to meet him and he pointed me to an area normally off-limits to visitors. opposite the relic of WW2, the tank-traps!
I was the only person in the isolated hide and initially I was struggling to make out any birds along the lagoon edge.
Eventually I was joined by a Welsh birder and we found two sandpipers at extreme range. Spotted sandpipers are extremely similar to our common sandpipers when they are not in breeding (spotty!) plumage.
This is massively cropped in and we were trying to make out whether it had yellowish legs and whether its wings stuck out beyond its tail or not! Not a chance. Eventually though a few of the local Portland birders turned up and by looking out the other side of the hide we got onto another bird which looked a lot better.
It is in the photo above, which is cropped in below.
The top photo shows you the habitat it was in. The edge of the lagoon was its favourite spot and it fed along the tide-line but this was below our line of sight, so we were playing hide and seek with it as it occasionally poked its head in the open. We all agreed it looked good but there was still a bit of doubt.
Occasionally though it did show properly and you could make out the key features. It's legs were certainly yellow.
The plumage was quite dull grey and most importantly as you can see from the side-on shot it has no tail! More correctly its primary wing feathers do not stick out beyond its tail giving the impression of no tail! It eventually flew off to the far side again, showing one more characteristic feature, its wing bar. On a spotted sandpiper the wing bar tapers out before it reaches the wing whereas on a common sandpiper it reaches close to or at the body.
I stayed in the hide for probably 3 hours and it never came very close but finally did show for more than a few seconds at a time - fortunately for me but not for the other birders who had all left by this time!
Whilst I was waiting there were a few other things to keep me amused. Swans were of course ever present, but mainly waiting for their feeding time and only occasionally flying around.
One of a pair of dabchicks came fishing long the edge of the lagoon.
Meadow pipits were present in good numbers, coming down to the edge in search of food.
Eventually I headed off home, but I did stop on the road out to look at the two cattle egrets in the field with, well, the cattle!
It makes a nice change to sometimes stop in one place and not rush around, watching the scenery and the activity around you, as I did today. Still got a year-tick but the enjoyment was a bit more rounded than just the tick.
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