Friday 25 August 2017

Brown Moss - Wood Sandpiper

It's a great year for Wood Sandpipers and the three I've seen locally during 2017 have all been distant. An obliging individual at Brown Moss was about to come a little closer today...

The reserve is a dog walkers paradise but that worked to my advantage, having followed a couple of dogs with their owners, the track passes fairly close to the shallow muddy scrape. Into the morning light however...


Never mind, a whole lot better than the VP birds!




The Wood Sand was making steady progress, I walked back to where the light was more favourable. It was more distant from here but showing well.  I had a group of Heifers in between me and the bird, the perfect screen! Standing its ground here as a Buzzard passed over!




And the busy feeding again - stealth personified!




The day was to get better after checking out the meres and Wood Lane, brief views of a juv Marsh Harrier at Wall Farm was my reward after a manic dash there. It was quite distant, briefly showing in the area the Steppe Grey Shrike favoured and was then gone before I could get the lens on it :-(