30/07/2015 Oare Marshes and Curlew Sandpipers

Thursday 30th July 2015

Oare Marshes, Kent

Having missed the Little Stint at Dungeness by a day, last Saturday, and the Wood Sandpiper at Castle Water (Rye), yesterday,  also by a day, I jumped at the chance to visit Oare Marshes NR in Kent where a Little Stint and 2 Curlew Sandpipers were seen yesterday.  The weather  conditions were favourable with no rain and 19C temperatures.

 

• I still had no luck with the Little Stint and, by all accounts, neither did anyone else today.  However 3 superb Curlew Sandpipers showed well on the East Flood from the hide. 

 

Curlew Sandpipers
Library pictures

 

• A Spotted Redshank was also close  to the sandpipers but it spent most of the time asleep.

 

 

A smashing three hour visit!  Just like at Dungeness and Rye, earlier in the week, there were thousands of birds to see, including the odd species to keep my year list "ticking" along.

Addition to BUBO 2015 UK Year List:

Curlew Sandpiper   (233)

• Similar to a dunlin, but in autumn it looks cleaner and paler with a white eyestripe. It has a longer, more down-curved bill than a dunlin and will feed in slightly deeper water. Deep chestnut breeding plumage unmistakable in spring and summer. In flight it shows a bright white rump.

• Curlew Sandpiper breeds on the tundra of Arctic Siberia and is strongly migratory, wintering mainly in Africa, but also in south and southeast Asia and in Australasia, travelling a distance of over 15,000km. 

• The number of Curlew Sandpiper turning up on our coasts are largely dependent on the summer's breeding productivity and the weather conditions during migration.  The numbers of Curlew Sandpiper passing through Britain pales into insignificance however compared with the numbers passing through the near continent, with the German part of the Wadden Sea hosting up to 27,000 birds. 

• A visit to a coastal marsh in August through to September should provide you with the opportunity to pick out one of these birds, though small numbers do turn up at inland sites too.