White-Rumped Sandpiper - WWT Slimbridge, Gloucestershire

A great day in the south-west with Carl started at Ham Wall RSPB, near Glastonbury. For the last week or so at least 2 Penduline Tits had been seen from the reserve, a species I'd already missed a couple of times. We arrived fairly early, in nice but freezing conditions! Passing the first lake, we managed to pick out the long-staying 2 Glossy Ibis which showed well on the other side of the lake.

We gave the Penduline Tits a good hour at their favoured area of reed mace, but unfortunately, there was no sign. The wind was strong and cold though, they could well have been hunkering down somewhere else. There were plenty of other cool birds around though, including 3 Great Egrets, 4 Marsh Harriers, multiple Water Rails and Cetti's Warblers heard and one brief 'boom' from a Bittern.

Driving for a few minutes round to the other side of the large reserve, we stopped at a spot where the long-staying Lesser Scaup apparently favoured. It didn't take long before we spotted the Lesser Scaup, loosely associating with a male Tufted Duck. Sadly, they quickly disappeared into an obscured bay and didn't reappear.

Female Lesser Scaup, right, showed well given the size of the lake!

After this, our next stop was WWT Slimbridge, where the White-Rumped Sandpiper had conveniently showed up again! This is one of my favourite reserves, and it turned out that the White-Rumped Sandpiper was in almost the exact same spot as the Collared Pratincole was a few months earlier. Being honest, I would have really struggled to separate this bird from Dunlin! The same lake also held a decent flock of Avocet, with some Dunlin and Black-Tailed Godwit. The sandpiper stayed on its own on a small island, and seemed reluctant to feed in the water whereas the other waders didn't.

The White-Rumped Sandpiper was close, but so small it looked like it was miles away!

After having our fill of the bird, we decided to explore the rest of the reserve. From the Peng Observatory, we had decent numbers of Bewick's Swans, Pintails and a great-looking drake Scaup - I didn't think I'd ever get both species in one day!

The Bewick's Swans came pretty close! Probably 90+ across the whole reserve

My first-ever drake Scaup, which typically also disappeared into an obscured bay within seconds!

Heading next to the Estuary Tower, we were greeted by hundreds of birds. A huge flock of geese was pretty evenly split between Barnacle Geese and White-Fronted Geese - probably close to 100 of each. There were also at least 8 Cranes, some quite close in. The Snow and Ross' Geese I had seen last time were still also both present.

Part of the huge goose flock, containing mainly Barnacle and White-Fronted Geese. Also a single Ross' Goose and masses of Starling

At least 8 Cranes were seen from the Estuary Tower, all paired up

Having already seen over 70 species, we headed to our final destination of Awre (pronounced 'Oar' apparently!) where a Richard's Pipit had been residing for about a week or so. After some difficulty finding the correct path and a long walk, we arrived at the grassy field where the bird had been reported. We had plenty of Skylark and Meadow Pipit, but at first there was no sign of our target bird. Then, a much larger bird popped out of a grassy track and started flying towards us - it was clearly the Richard's Pipit! Unfortunately, we didn't have amazing views, limited to a couple of 10 second fly-bys. We did however get good binocular views and heard it call several times.

After another long walk, we arrived back at the car, noting some Tree Sparrows in the surrounding hedgerows. The weather had been great throughout, we'd walked well over 20,000 steps, seen 80+ species and I'd got 3 new lifers in the form of Lesser Scaup, White-Rumped Sandpiper and Richard's Pipit.

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