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Shorebirds

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WHITE-BELLIED SEEDSNIPE

White-bellied Seedsnipe, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

WHITE-BELLIED SEEDSNIPE HAD FOUND ITS WAY ONTO MY BUCKET LIST. I first read about it in the Croom Helm Shorebirds identification guide way back in 1986. Four weird, apparent shorebirds, plus Magellanic Plover tagged onto the end of the book, after Ruff, however, I didn’t expect to find myself working my way through the seedsnipes all these years later. This enigmatic bird usually requires a hike above the tree line in Patagonia’s far south and even then, owing to its cryptic plumage and the fact that it is usually well into its breeding cycle by the time people look for it around Ushuaia, it can be tricky to find. White-bellied Seedsnipe does not spend the Austral winter on the mountain tops, instead, they descend to the rolling Patagonian steppe grassland to the east of the Andes, where they present a different challenge to locate in a vast, rather uniform landscape. I had searched for to the northeast of Punta Arenas last autumn but was thwarted by an unexpected river crossing, deep, water-filled, rutted tracks and ultimately a collapsed cattle grid. This year’s first visit down south was a bit late to expect to find one on its wintering grounds, so I didn’t have much hope, but why not try anyway? The Lesser (or Magellanic) Horned Owls I wanted to recce for the Wild Images tour start next morning were dealt with very quickly, so I had some extra time. Not far away, the endless stony shore of windswept Laguna Los Palos, north of Punta Arenas is my goto spot for Magellanic Plover and it is also an occasional site for the seedsnipe, among some other interesting shorebirds. 13,000 steps and double figures of Magellanic Plovers later, just when I was resigning myself to a hike up a mountainside in Tierra Del Fuego, a loud piping call came from a shorebird that flew up about ten metres in front of me. It landed not much further ahead… and had a white belly and chainmail-patterned wing coverts. WOW! White-bellied Seedsnipe. I wished I had someone else to share the sighting with but on the other hand it was nice to enjoy it alone in a wild, wide open landscape. What a privilege to see one at sea level as well.

White-bellied Seedsnipe, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

White-bellied Seedsnipe, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

White-bellied Seedsnipe, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

Magellanic Plover, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

Magellanic Plover, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

Magellanic Plover, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

Magellanic Plover, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

Baird’s Sandpiper, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

Least Seedsnipe, Laguna los Palos 10 September 2025 (Mike Watson)

Laguna los Palos landscape (Mike Watson)

Lesser (or Magellanic) Horned Owl (Mike Watson)

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RUFF AT ALSTON

Juvenile female Ruff, Alston Reservoirs (Mike Watson) CLICK IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

AT LAST I FOUND SOMETHING INTERESTING AT ALSTON, it’s been a while. A lovely juvenile female Ruff was feeding on the wetland among lapwings yesterday evening. There was a dark and threatening mauve sky to the west, a wall of thunderstorms and maybe the Ruff pitched down at Alston rather than head into it? It was still there when I checked this morning, after the terrific lightning storm last night, but I was surprised to hear that it had moved to the No.#1 reservoir a couple of hours later and even better it was showing down to a few metres. Gavin Thomas commented that he was probably the first human it had seen? I reckon I must have been the second then, it even walked right up to me and checked out my lens hood. The closest I have ever been to a Ruff, a simply awesome experience in bright sunshine now. It was working the stone banks of the reservoir catching lots of tiny flies in the spindrift of the waves lapping the shore.

I was thinking about anniversaries today. Yesterday evening’s exquisite juvenile greenshank at Alston was 45 years after my first, at Leighton Moss in 1975 and the ruff is only a couple of weeks short of the 40th anniversary of my first Ruffs, at Voss in Norway in August 1980. They are scarce in East Lancs and this one is only my fourth in the ELOC recording area. The Covid-19 pandemic has certainly made me appreciate local rarities!


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MORE SANDERLING ACTION

Sanderling on Alston No.#1, 24 May 2020 (Mike Watson).

‘EVERY ARCTIC-BREEDING SHOREBIRD THAT LANDS AT ALSTON IS A PRIVILEGE’ is what Gav said about the first of this year’s Sanderlings and in the continuing strong westerly winds our walks elsehwere on our local patch had not been productive, so a trip to No.1 was the obvious choice this morning. It was feeding along the sheltered west bank of the ‘velodrome’ that is Alston No. 1 at the moment. Alexander is getting there in stalking birds and was able to get very close to it, being much smaller than me! He also managed to move it along to me, down to within minimum focus at times, it was easily the tamest of the eight Sanderling I have seen here so far this month. Fab-u-lous!

We still have a lot to learn about where the Sanderlings occurring in the UK breed in the Arctic. It could be Siberia (there is a recovery from there ringed on the Norfolk side of the Wash) but Tees-side-ringed Sanderlings have staged in Iceland, maybe bound for East Greenland or even the Canadian Arctic? It is amazing to think where the little bird today is bound for. Bird migration is awesome! Thanks to Gavin Thomas for finding today’s Sanderling.

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PENDLE HILL DOTTEREL

My first dotterel on Pendle Hill for four years, how times have changed! CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

DOTTEREL IS BECOMING A RARE SIGHT ON PENDLE HILL. As their numbers become fewer, they are ever more difficult to find as they stopover in East Lancashire on their way north each spring. Ironic that this year has seen the least disturbance on Pendle in recent memory, with hardly anyone making the hike up there, following the dubious closure of the Pendleside footpath. It would still have been a great place to keep your distance from other folks and much less risky than lots of places that were kept open. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this subject and came to the conclusion that the trip to the supermarket is infinitely more dangerous! Nevertheless, the finder rightly didn’t want the news broadcast despite the easing of lockdown allowing local folks to visit, in the knowledge that it would attract twitchers from much further afield. We were already aware of a birder making three c.100 miles round trips to Pendle the previous week in the hope of a dottie. We also thought that if this showy bird by the path to the trig point wasn’t battered by loads of toggers, as usually happens, it might attract some more during its stay but this proved not to be the case even with the lack of the usual endless stream of hikers and dog walkers with their animals off the lead. There really are fewer dotties now than even 10 years ago, a sad situation! The concensus is that this is a first summer female, any other thoughts are welcome.

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