A big bird for Staffs, with only 5 previous records of this wader in the entire West Midlands region. Three of these occured in Staffs in the 70’s and 80’s and one in Worcestershire in 1996. *
And then of course, the one day bird at Grimley New Workings on 14th July this year, which Martyn and I tragically dipped the following morning.
A White-rumped Sandpiper had been found on Tuesday 13th November at Drayton Bassett Pits/Middleton Lakes, or whatever we call it these days. With work all week, my initial outlook on catching up with this bird was pretty grim.
However the bird was still present come Friday. Gulp.... This was a bird Martyn previously described as his ‘biggest regional bogey bird’, which didn’t exactly bode well for the bird hanging on till Saturday morning.
I’m pleased to say that the White-rumped Sandpiper was indeed still present and we enjoyed some very good scope views of this first-winter bird. It was active and mobile throughout our visit on the pit south of the north pit and it was undisturbed by some mechanial digging work that was going on.
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| White-rumped Sandpiper at Drayton Bassett, images courtesy of Richard Powell |
Also
notable; 2 Green Sandpiper, 4 Little Egret, 1 Golden Plover over and 1 Kingfisher.
This was followed by a quick call in at the Edison Rd River Culvert where we had a Chiffchaff and a Peregrine carrying prey.
* The new Birds of the
West Midlands
Well done Kay.
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