Oare Marshes Wednesday 4th August (1 Viewer)

Dear all,
Yesterday's visit to Oare in the afternoon was, as ever, productive. All these birds were either on or near the East Lagoon during four hours of pretty intense watching:

1,000+ Black-Tailed Godwits

3 Bar-Tailed Godwits ( only saw these when I happened to notice barring on the tails of a small party of godwits as they flew into the throng. Of course, I never saw them again during my visit).

5 Curlew Sandpipers - these birds seemed to vanish quite early on. Originally when I'd just arrived there were three.

Garganey - after a lot of searching and trying to produce an accurate count, I came up with a minimum of three. Most likely there are in fact four. Photos of all three are below. Since one bird is darker than the rest with a broad greyish-blue wing panel I'd say this is the drake, and the other two presumably a female and a juvenile. In the photo where the two female-like birds are standing together, one has a more spotted breast than the other. Can anyone confirm whether this is a juvenile and the bird with far less breast spotting is an adult female? All three birds sometimes swam in a line looking all the world like a family group.

Greenshank - 10
Ruff - 15
Oystercatchers - 16 flew over
Whimbrel - 2 flew over
Dunlin - 50
Golden Plovers - 2
Common Sandpipers - 4
Little Ringed Plover - 1 juvenile briefly
Common Terns - 8 flew over
Sandwich Terns - 2 on the lagoon for 20 minutes
Little Egret - 2
Yellow Wagtails - 2
Marsh Harrier - 2

At 3:50pm a Hobby chased a Dunlin over the lagoon and resukted in a swirling mass of waders. The Dunlin eluded capture and I must admit I don't think I've seen a Hobby pursue a wader before.

Yet another wader-packed visit!

Lancey

HI Lancey,

Sounds like another great day....

I was there myself in late afternoon/early evening...

Didn't see the Curlew Sandpipers, but was just examining a possible Little Stint when the flock went up - I have my doubts, but it was never seen again anyway.

Did see 5 Knot and one Wood Sandpiper showing very well, in addition to 2 Snipe, one bang in front of the new hide.


All the best.... Ruby

Possible Little Stint

Ruby,
There are a few juvenile Dunlin with white edges to the mantle feathers and with little streaking on their underparts which are somewhat like juvenile Little Stints at a distance. I saw one myself yesterday and thought it a possible stint before realising that in structure it was in fact a Dunlin.

I have taken a photo of one a few visits back and attach it here.

Regards,
Lancey

Yes Lancey, I am pretty sure that it would have turned out to be a Dunlin like the one you have attached - certainly I saw a few of those during the evening, but no Little Stints.

Interesting that the Dunlin numbers seemed to be far fewer than when I was there with Robinm last week - I reckon that there were 3 or 4 times the number last week. Not very scientific, but I was thinking...more Dunlin, higher chance of Curlew Sands or Little Stints...


All the best.... Ruby

PS. Forgot to mention a Little Owl.... they seem to be quite regular there these days....