Deja Vu!

Yesterday morning in the rain, I was in Firth hide when a small wader appeared in front of me. I fired off a few quick shots in the gloom and it flew to a distant island then disappeared. I thought it was probably a Stint but had some suspicions about it. After a while the rain stopped, the bird had not reappeared so I went sea watching and  completely forgot about it.

When I got home in the evening I downloaded the days pictures to my laptop while I ate my dinner.

After dinner I started looking at the pictures. As the first one opened I uttered an expletive and quickly sent a couple of shots to DW and phoned him to let him know they were coming. He shortly called me back and was calm and more or less speechless, but my ears were definitely burning with what he wanted to call me.  

This morning I went to Firth Hide as soon as the gate opened finding 2 of the locals already there. They had seen a Stint on a distant island but had lost it in the poor light. Fortunately I relocated the bird quite quickly and put the news out that there was a Semipalmated Sandpiper there. 

The bird showed quite well on and off all day but never really close and was quite mobile.

Semipalmated Sandpiper with Dunlin

 Other birds seen from Firth were 5 Ruff, 8+ Ringed Plover, 14+ Dunlin, a Greenshank, 50+ Golden Plover, 5 Common Snipe, a Black Tern, a Black-necked Grebe, 2+Hobbys, 2 Marsh Harriers, 8 Little Egrets and a Great White Egret. Also 2 Spoonbills flew west OL,DW.

Semipalmated Sandpiper alighting

 The south end of the ARC held a Little Stint and another Black-necked Grebe, from Hanson 10 Black-tailed Godwits, 2 Ruff and 2 Garganey of note.

Palmations visible

The following Limerick is courtesy of The Joker!

There once was a birder named Plod
Found a wader that seemed very odd
His claimed Little Stint
That had made his eyes glint
Was a Semi P- the clever old sod!