Wood Sandpiper: This was an absolutely fantastic little bird, one that wasn't camera shy and walked right up to me. Brilliant.
Notably smaller than their cousins the redshank, but similar to redshank wood sands have an obvious white rump and densely barred tail. Adult wood sands have a densely streaked neck, breast and upper parts.
They have a prominent supercilium like, again similar to redshank but differs in having bright greeny/yellow legs.
They are typically passage birds in the UK & Ireland and a very scarce breeder in the highlands of northern Scotland. With autumn and early summer being particularly good for passage birds.
Newton Marsh is a really nice spot, basically just a pull in off a side road overlooking a small creek area. It holds some really good breeding waders and good number of them come to feed and roost in the pools.
After being chased by some local redshank the bird eventually alighted on the mud bank on the far side of the pool, before slowly walking towards me giving me a very rare opportunity to get up close and personal.
