Another amazing day at Frampton Marsh. An adult buff-breasted sandpiper was found this morning but proved very elusive all day. The problem with it was that it spent most of its time out in the middle of that grassland in the background of the photo rather than in amongst the flock of waders in the foreground. Even when it occasionally came out onto the mud it was usually around the edges rather than the open mud, so it was quite difficult to pin down and after a brief show it would frustratingly disappear behind some tall grass or rush and not be seen again for a couple of hours. Add to that the relative lack of birders present combined with the chilly strong winds which made viewing quite difficult and very uncomfortable and you can see why it was so elusive. Finally though I caught up with it in the evening when the wind had dropped a bit and saw it reasonably well. Like the commoner pectoral sandpiper, buff-breasted sandpipers are great birds and always exciting and a pleasure to see.
The highlight of the day for me though was something which I really didn't expect and was, as somebody commented when I told them the story, birding gold. Just as I was arriving at the reserve this evening, I was about 50m from the reception hide when I saw a sparrowhawk chasing something down the road towards me. The bird it was chasing was about the same size as the sparrowhawk, and looked a bit like a kestrel but despite the speed at which the birds were flying it was at times almost floating like a paper plane on stiff V shaped wings, a really strange way of escaping a pursuing predator I thought. I instantly knew what it was and I slammed the breaks on, grabbed my binoculars as the pair continued towards me and flew past the car no more than 3m away. I couldn't believe it, it was a female nightjar! An absolutely incredible sighting. Whether or not the nightjar escaped the sparrowhawk I couldn't say because they disappeared behind the hedge, but actually it's strange manner of flight may have helped because it was so unpredictable and allowed it to change direction quickly. The sparrowhawk certainly didn't seem to be gaining on the bird and perhaps the odd flight pattern put doubt in the hawks mind as to what exactly this was that it was chasing!
Despite nightjars being nocturnal, sparrowhawks are listed amongst their potential predators so I guess that they must occasionally accidentally flush them from daytime roosts, especially when the nightjars are on migration as this bird undoubtedly was.
Also this evening the adult long-billed dowitcher again and around 10 spotted redshanks, the latter being non-breeding adults in that beautiful silver grey plumage which they have, which is actually just as nice as the completely black breeding plumage.
Supporting cast today included 13 spoonbills, 15 wood sandpipers and 8 green sandpipers, plus loads of other stuff. That's 27 species of wader for me between here and Freiston Shore in the past two weeks, including three species of American wader (buff-breasted & white-rumped sandpiper x3 and long-billed dowitcher). I don't recall many (any?) American waders on the west coast locally during the same period. That's a whole other discussion.....
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