The previous evening a possible Temminck's Stint quickly turned into a Least Sandpiper at St.Aidens RSPB near Leeds,which i though to myself i would like to see,but wanted to go to the local patch as well.....they'll be another i tried to kid myself..I then checked my phone again later at work and F... the Least Sandpiper had been re-identified as Britain's 3rd Long-toed Stint,this was serious!.
I got up next morning,went to the local patch and waited on news of the Stint and bingo,it was still there,so it was abandoned ship and head up the M62 towards Leeds.
As i had already been to St.Aidens to twitch the adult Franklin's Gull earlier in the year,i knew exactly where to park etc. and the bird was almost in the same area i had seen the Gull,so it was going to be a frantic walk.
On arrival i quickly got the gear together and i was off,a few happy faces and the welcome words 'It's still here',made me relax a little.
I eventually got to where people were viewing the bird,but it was pretty distant to be fair,but the jizz of the bird could be appreciated as it fed along with a small flock of Dunlin.
From distance it gave the impression of a diminutive Pec Sand or Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and then the whole flock flew up,it flew around a few times with the Dunlin and then broke away following a flock of Lapwing and landed on Astley Lake.
I made my way around to Astley,but the viewing conditions were not great,with you having to find gaps in the reeds,to view through as the bird fed on a small island in amongst the Lapwing flock.
Here the bird was closer,but still not as close as i would have liked,i then settled down to study this mega rare bird.
For most of the time i watched it,it had a hunched posture as it constantly pecked at food on the surface of the mud,with occasional neck stretches when it was spooked,it was at these times it looked quite long necked.It's legs were yellowish and had really long tibia,which probably explained the unusual,hunched feeding action.
Overall the bird was quite dark,with the dark centred scapulars,dark,tightly streaked cap with super over the eye and a trace of a split supercilium also,short dark bill,mucky looking breast band,which just looked like a block of grey feathering,rather than streaking as on Pec.
The Primaries were completely cloaked by the long tertials,giving a short winged impression to me and in some poses the bird looked as if it's head was too small for its body.
I spent a good two and a half hours watching the bird,but i had,had enough of the crowd by this time and i decided to call it a day and headed back to the car and home.
Other highlights seen while on site included a lovely juvenile Bittern,a party of 4 juvenile Spoonbills giving a couple of nice flypasts and a juvenile Goosander.
This constitutes my first sighting of the species and also the 3rd record for Britain and the first since a bird at Saltholme Pool in Cleveland in September 1982.
The bird breeds in sparsely vegetated marshes in the subarctic regions of far eastern Siberia and winters in India to South East Asia,Taiwan and Australia.
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