The Lincolnshire Bird Club

on Wednesday evening Neil Drinkall found an adult Semi-palmated Sandpiper at Alkborough Flats; typically distant he was keen to confirm the ID before releasing news but managed eventually to get some decent digi-scoped images that have been posted in the album; locals only managed to arrive at 20:00 by which time the bird was again distant and the light fading; the flock of small waders flew off at 20:20 and were not seen again. I was on site this morning from 06:00hrs but in spite of spending all day searching for the bird it did not reappear until about 18:20 whne it was picked up by Craig Nimmick, Simon and Karen Spavin by which time it was dull and raining; the bird flew in with about 21 Dunlin and 32 Ringed Plover (there had been up to 15 Dunlin and 22 Ringed Plovers during the day) it remained in front of the hide until 18:55 when it flew off east with most of the small waders --
ND's images from the 18th and some very poor shots from this evening are in the album; ND should be congratulated on a great find and getting some decent images in testing conditions -- the present tides are only neaps and mid afternoon so the birds do not seem to be tidal -- raptor activity causes frequent disturbance with today for example 3 Sparrowhawks, the usual Marsh Harriers, 2 juvenile Peregrines, Merlin, Buzzard and a juvenile Osprey were all seen on site
this is only the second Lincolnshire record of this species the first being a long stayer at Wisbech Sewage Farm from November 12th to the end of December 1966

Well done ND - hopefully the movements of this bird can be pinned down as I imagine that a large number of Lincs birds would like to catch up with this bird....

Andrew

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Andrew Chick
Website: http://www.forktail.co.uk/

for anyone who has not seen the discussion on the bird at Blacktoft (presumably the same bird as that at Alkborough) theer is a link to Martin Garner's excellent site below -- I heard today that there had been stories of the Blacktoft bird being a Little Stint but have no idea where this came from as shown below--
http://birdingfrontiers.com/2010/08/11/ ... sandpiper/

it seems strange that this truly rare bird has attracted so little comment or discussion on this forum; is it just because most people's views have been so bad that in honesty no-one could have seen enough identification features or is there really a lack of interest in bird identification nowadays in Lincs? I can post some terrible pics that seem to prove it is the same as the Blacktoft bird and hopefully also prove the identification if anyone is actually interested.

It's got to be a photogenic bird for me to turn up Graham. Looking for colour, looking for 'close' looking for 'picture'.

I saw it yesterday, and Graham's photos pretty much sum up what i saw. A very distant stint. All i could make out was an isolated white throat setting off a distinct grey breast band, and very cold toned above. Perhaps some subtle jizz distinctions from Little Stint too, but my views were too brief (c5 mins) to form any meaningful conclusions. It's clearly the Blacktoft bird, and would also seem (to me anyway) to be the Port Carlisle bird too.

Also on site:

LRP - 3 juv
Hobby - 1 adult

PRF

In terms of meaningful identification criteria I doubt if most people could add anything based on the distant views, but the link to the Martin Garner site was v interesting. So please do put more terrible pics on ! I have some shaky vid taken at 50x but you wont see the semi-foot webbing !

Any chance this could be the same as the Cresswell bird last year?

Kev

looking at things like the Oriental Prat the stats on returning birds are suggesting that the number of records archived may be far too high and a much smaller number of vagrants are being recorded as returning individuals so linking birds by location and even by year seems to be the recent trend; I see the Essex R B Gull is back for its umpteenth year -- waders being a bit more prone to changing exact staging areas are a little harder to tie down

I noticed while watching the bird yesterday,that even at long range,it had a very different feeding action when compared to Little Stint,with it being much slower,a few steps then picking food items,compared to Little Stint's more frenetic action.A great find by ND,lets hope he can re-find the Sharp-tailed Sand as well. .


Steve.

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http://www.brachytron.blogspot.co.uk

http://www.LincolnshireOdes.blogspot.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/routy

After waiting about five hours on Saturday, I got to see this bird at about six hundred yards away. It came well into the open after spending several hours hidden behind a reed bed

Was it worth the wait - well yes but unfortunately the view obtained didn't compare to previously seen ones in the Caribbean. Disappointing views yes but if everything was easy there would be no challenge

I am one that prefers to see photos no matter how grainy. Look at what can be achieved reference Russell Hayes

I have got a few more shots from last Friday - will put them in the album.
I went again this evening but the bird was at quite long range- before flying out of view.

Roy

Now if it was a FULL blown palmated Sandpiper with vibrant color iv be intrested but semi seems a bit unsophisticated to me
Rob.

I spent a while last night checking my video footage, attempting to get some grabs that show the bird with the foot exposed.
The difficulty is that the foot starts to relax and fold as it is lifted. Have put my best efforts in the album this morning.

Roy.