A super sandpiper weekend - Baird's at Worcestershire & Semipalmated in Hampshire

Having almost completed the extensive collection of sandpipers on the British list with just 4 remaining (Least, Upland, Baird’s and Semipalmated) it was a nice surprise when a juvenile Baird’s Sandpiper turned up at Upton Warren in Worcestershire, just over an hour down the road.

With the bird still present the next morning, we made the trip down the M6 in an effort to see this attractive sandpiper, and duly paying our £3 permit fee, headed over to the furthest hide on the reserve where the Baird’s had been showing.

With a juvenile Ruff also present for company, we soon locked on to the much smaller Baird’s, busily feeding on the far edge of the flash in the mud and working its way around the pool. Despite the distance making any decent photographs impossible, the views through the scope were excellent - the beautiful patterns on the back standing out even at range and the distinctive elongated profile created by the long primary projection clearly defined.

Terrible phonescoped record shots of the Baird's! 

With a long, thin body and shorter legs, Baird’s Sandpipers are one of the most distinctive American peeps that make it over the Atlantic, and despite never coming in front of the hide during my visit as it has been doing on the following days, it was still fantastic to see and is now firmly in place as one of my favourite American sandpipers.

With a Semipalmated Sandpiper at Titchfield Haven also being retrospectively ID’d from photographs on Saturday evening (it was originally thought to be a Little Stint by on site observers), this provided the perfect opportunity to make it a double sandpiper weekend. Semi-ps have been a particular nemesis bird of mine for a while now, having previously dipped 2 in the past while a third bird at Hoylake could never be narrowed down from either a Semipalmated or Western Sandpiper.

Despite being over 3 hours away, the fact that the Semi-p was showing particularly well and still present the next morning saw us head down to Hampshire in the glorious sunshine in search of my second American sandpiper of the weekend.

Arriving at the hide and with the Semi-p instantly on show on a distant muddy bank, it took all of 5 seconds of viewing before the whole scrape was flushed! Potential nightmare! Luckily, the Semi-p and associating Little Stint didn’t go far, instead flying closer on to one of the smaller islands and providing the perfect opportunity to study the subtle differences between these two exceptionally similar species.

Semipalmated Sandpiper showing well!

Being roughly the same size (the Semi-p was a touch smaller than the Little Stint), the Little Stint was slightly brighter marked than the Semipalmated’s uniform grey colour, also demonstrating marginally darker and blacker legs in comparison. The lack of white tram lines on the back of the Semi-p was also conspicuous, allowing us to easily separate the two at a glance.

Spot the difference! The Semi-p is on the left while the Little Stint is on the right

As with the Semipalmated Sandpipers we saw in New York last year, I again got the impression of a slim bodied wader, slightly thinner than the Little Stint’s dumpier posture which again proved a useful characteristic in the field for separating the two.

Often hard to distinguish from the similar Western Sandpipers in America (such as the tricky Hoylake peep several years agao) the lack of any fiery tones in the upper scapulars as shown on Westerns and the shorter, straighter bill all aided in confirming the identification of what I consider to be quite a hard species to ID.

Luckily, the Semi-p flew right in front of the hide before we left, offering amazing views and emphasising the point that it is far more satisfactory to travel a longer distance for a bird that shows well than to get poor views of a bird that perhaps isn’t as far.

Alex's super video of the Semi-p - a big thanks to him for making the epic drive too

A great weekend full of sandpiper success and hopefully the start of what promises to be a fruitful autumn as far as American vagrants are concerned. 

New York Trip Report - Day 9 (Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge)

Day 9 -  Friday 29th May 2015

With our final full day in America dawning, we had planned to visit Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, a fantastic series of coastal and lagoon pools that offer prime habitat for a variety of water birds, many of which would be new to the trip. With reports of herons, egrets and a wealth of shore birds, this was a location that we were really looking forward to exploring.  With coastal marshes and lagoons, the habitat at Jamaica was completely different to what we had experienced so far, and we were aiming to bring our trip total of new birds up to 100 as a result.

The view of Manhattan from Jamaica Bay

Arriving at the visitor centre mid-morning, the lady at the desk promptly banned us from taking any food on to the reserve, so we quickly tucked in to everything we had brought with us at the picnic tables outside. This proved to be a good move, as several large crows flying overhead identified themselves by a series of low grunts – diagnostic of Fish Crows and our first new species of the day.

Having finished our snacks, we headed in to the reserve, following the trail between Black Wall Marsh and West Pond to see what we could find. Several egrets on the coastal marsh were Snowy Egrets, the American equivalent of our Little Egrets and another new species for us both. 

Snowy Egret

Much smaller than the scattering of Great Egrets interspersed along the marsh and extremely similar to our more familiar Littles, Snowy Egrets can be separated by the yellow lores underneath the eye (grey in those of the Little). 

Snowy Egret and Great Egret displaying the size difference between the two!

The yellow lores clearly visible

Now we’re aware of the differences, we’ll definitely be checking each Little Egret in the UK a little more thoroughly for any Snowies hiding amongst them unnoticed!

Tree Swallows were in abundance at Jamaica Bay, and several zipped over our heads before landing in the nearby trees, giving fantastic views of their shimmering turquoise feathers. 

Tree Swallow

The most attractive swallows we saw during our trip, it was amazing to come across several nest boxes in use at the side of the path where the adults could be seen regularly peeking out of the holes and perching on the top.

Semipalmated Sandpiper at Slimbridge WWT

With a Semipalmated Sandpiper having been present at Slimbridge WWT in Gloucestershire over the past week, we cancelled our planned trip north to Spurn on Saturday and instead headed south instead to try and catch up with what is beginning to become a bit of a bogey bird.

Having previously dipped a Semi-p a few years ago at Hoylake, with another individual (again at Hoylake) never confirmed as to whether it was a Western or a Semi-p, there is still a gap in my British Sandpiper list where Semi-p should sit.

Arriving at Zeiss Hide, we were disappointed to see that the group of waders were extremely distant and only just visible (the fog wasn’t helping), being nowhere near close enough in such bad light to make out the level of plumage detail required to confirm Semi-p ID. 

As the fog started to lift and the light became a little better, a juvenile Little Stint was picked up amongst the many Dunlin present, along with a second small grey bird – thought by some to possibly be the Semi-p. Throughout the afternoon, the whole group of birders in the hide watched and observed this individual, split in two minds as to whether this was an adult Little Stint or the Semi-p. It was far too distant to get any details on the scapulars (the Semi-p would show a dark tip with a central line to the feathers, whereas a Little Stint would show the centres being all black), while the colouration (difficult to see through the fog) could fit that of both Little Stint and Semi-p. Whilst the bird did look larger than the juvenile Little Stint present, some adult Little Stints can look exceptionally large - like an individual we saw at Burton Mere a day later which was also initially mistaken for a Sandpiper sp. in poor light due to the size.

Whilst several people left happy and ticking the bird as a Semi-p and a lifer, I personally will not be. The bird was far too distant and in bad light to get the level of detail required to 100% say either way that this was the Semipalmated Sandpiper and not an adult Little Stint.

Having had amazing views of Semipalmated Sandpipers just a few feet away in New York earlier in May, I was struck by how long and thin bodied they looked, and how the legs were positioned quite far back along the body creating a front heavy look. 

The Semipalmated Sandpipers from New York back in May this year

I just didn’t get that impression from the bird at Slimbridge, which created some reservations personally about confidently calling it as a Semi-p. The overall structure also created more of a “Little Stint” impression to me than that of a Semi-p, and while the plumage could fit that of a juvenile Semi-p, I’ve seen several photographs of Little Stints looking identical. Whilst there is every chance that this was the Semipalmated Sandpiper, especially with it being seen in the two days that followed, I personally don’t feel comfortable ticking a bird when there is even the smallest element of doubt.

Adult Semipalmated Sandpiper in New York - the bird at Slimbridge is a juvenile

This experience also demonstrates to me that you should never really tick a bird on the basis of someone else’s opinion as to its identification unless you are 100% certain yourself and can see all the reasons as to why a bird is what it is. At one stage, the whole hide started watching a very pale and bright Dunlin for up to 10 minutes, convinced it was the bird we had been watching all day and convinced it was a Semi-p, some even leaving having ticked it as such.

To me, ticking a new bird on views like we had where there is a sense of uncertainty defeats the object of twitching in the first place – the whole purpose being to admire, watch and learn about new species as opposed to just getting a tick in a box next to a name. Hopefully, another Semi-p will come around soon providing much better views and allowing us to finally and confidently add it to our British lists.