Christine's walking & birds blog

I haven't looked at the excellent highland birds.scot website for some time - mostly because I don't want to be tempted into twitching again. Yesterday I clicked on it and, in a masochistic sort of way, looked at reports for the last couple of weeks to see what goodies I'd missed! There was a sighting on September 23rd of a Baird's sandpiper at Achnahaird - which immediately got me looking back at my photos on a trip Greger and I made out there on the 20th. A feeding flock of dunlin, ringed plover, and sanderling kept us rooted to one spot for a while, as I scanned for something different. I thought I found it - a possible Baird's sandpiper, feeding near the sanderlings; but as ever, I lacked confidence in my ID skills, and as I didn't write a post for that day I forgot about the little wader, thinking it was just an odd-looking dunlin. I managed to get three photos.

They're poor images, but I think that, clicked-up, they show a straightish black bill, "scaly" upperparts, buffy breast, and wings that project beyond the tail. All good for Baird's - but then, I'm biased.

The other thing that caught my eye was the report of a great shearwater "at Ullapool" on September 16th - the day of my sighting out on The Minch. Eh?! I could have stayed at home, saving myself the cost of a ferry ticket, and still seen a great shearwater! Well, that's birding for you.