Wednesday, July 07, 2010
And about time too. This one is pretty straightforward.
I went to the river yesterday. When I was there I saw a Common Sandpiper fly across the river and land on the foreshore. It then flew back across the river (all shivery winged and that) and I didn’t see it again.
And that’s how it happens. Year tick. 63 for the year.
This picture shows you the area that the Sandpiper was in. Just imagine that the gull in the picture is a small wader. And that it is bobbing about. And that will be approximately what I saw.
A Gull doing imaginary bobbing.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Don't get too excited, it's not a patch first in the way that a Caspian Gull might be, more of a movement into new territory by a vagrant species. While watching gulls on the Thames yesterday lunchtime (who, me?) I also found a couple of Common Sandpipers. Waders = Good.
Now it seems to me that waders generally have two main types of flight. There is the normal 'I am going from A to B, in the air, and I will flap my wings regularly to get there' type flight and then there is the 'Whoooaaaa shiiiiit' erratic flight that they do when close to feeding and resting areas. Common Sandpipers, of course, also have the 'I'm pretending to be cold and just about to fall into the water just below me' type flight. Which is what they were doing over the Thames yesterday.
It was while watching them do this, that I saw them fly into the Wandle Basin AND LAND! This, dear reader, is the first. Despite all the mud and coots in the low tide wandle basin, it is distinctly unpopular with waders. Until yesterday. Waders actually on the river Wandle. See - it's not just about Gulls and coots here.
The apposite thing here would be to give you a picture of a Common Sandpiper flying up the Wandle. Unfortunately at that distance they were little more than jizzblobs, so that is out of the Question.
Instead of that, if I leave a picture from the Counting Coots library of 'not sure what that is for' images of the area that they
were in, you can then imagine them flying over the mud and into the distance yourself.
Happy with that?
Friday, May 08, 2009
Another high tide yesterday lunchtime, and as I trudged towards the river bank, I was filled with thoughts of 'can I be arsed with this today?'. Probably a reflection of the dour mornings work more than anything else...
As I got to the river, a Common Sandpiper flew along my side of the bank and when it got within about ten feet of me, it changed direction and shivered off to the other side. Suddenly I really could be arsed.
Fact - the first passage Common Sandpiper on this patch in 2008 occured on exactly the same date.
Fact - that fact is awesome.
Of course, I should supply you with a stunning flight shot of a Common Sand here. I don't have one. So here is a swift. In flight. Natch.
