The day after Frampton’s marsh sandpiper, Twitter was abuzz with news of this relative of the woodpeckers. Knowing from experience that the species doesn’t hang around, I rescheduled my Sunday and motored up to New Passage. My previous dips cautioned against optimism but just 100 yards on from parking the car, a knot of watchers got the pulse racing.
An alert little long-tailed shape on a lawn had to be the bird and my binoculars confirmed it. If the shape was distinctive, the markings were stunning. For a species that’s not especially colourful, there’s still oodles of interest in its stripes, vermiculations, patterns and speckles. The scope revealed much more and kept me busy for ages.
Good though the marsh sandpiper was, the wryneck was a whole order of better. Plus, two UK species in a weekend, eh? I’d have to go back three years to similar when I landed sharp-tailed and semipalmated sandpiper at Chew on the same day, although confirmation of the latter took a week before an expert picked it out from photographs.
So, I’m up to 299 (according to the IOU). What will be number 300? I’m guessing green-winged teal. According to BUBO, who only have me at 297 – they don’t split the bean geese and they don’t count ruddy shelduck – it’s one of my major blockers and I have tried for it a few times. It wouldn’t be a lifer of course with my years in the States.