I've hardly been out with the camera over the last few months but had a couple of chances over the last two days. This coincided with an obliging white-rumped sandpiper, a bird I'd never heard of until yesterday. This chose to settle on a flooded field by the river Parrett near Steart and it has been keeping company with curlew sandpiper (another bird new to me), a spotted redshank and some dunlin and wagtails. A lot of these have been disappearing as the tide in the estuary drops and then returning as the level rises but the white-rumped sandpiper stays put. I understand that this may be the second ever record in the county. (Correction thanks to Ash Warne, at least the 6th WRS in the county.)
At a glance, it resembles a dunlin but it can be distinguished by longer wings that protrude well beyond its rump, a white rump most visible during flight and by buff colouration near the base of the bill. I was pleased to get some reasonable although distant pics over the last couple of overcast days and some lousy pics that serve to show the rump in flight.
Curlew sandpiper and White-rumped sandpiper
White-rumped sandpiper - Calidris fuscicollis
White-rumped sandpiper - Calidris fuscicollis
White-rumped sandpiper - Calidris fuscicollis
A very pleasant addition to the day today were half a dozen wheatear feeding near one of the piles of soil that has been dug out to make a channel in preparation to making new salt marsh at this site.
Wheatear - Oenanthe oenanthe
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