06/05/2025 Grafham Water, Cambridgeshire

Spotted Sandpiper: Look more closely at these pictures, it's almost like this little wading bird has hearts on it. This bird has been showing well all weekend and I held my nerve for when I was working down this way after the Bank Holidays.

Grafham Water is England's third biggest reservoir nestled in 1500 acres of bucolic countryside, but thankfully the bird kept to a small area of the vegetated bankside called the Plumer Park.

With the exception of its heavily spotted breast, spotted sandpiper are very similar in appearance and habit to our common sandpiper. They have distinct spots on their belly during their summer plumage stage and the adults have yellowish legs, an orange bill, and brown on top with black spots underneath.

The Spotted Sandpiper breeds near fresh water across most of North America where it essentially replaces our Common Sandpiper. It is the most widespread breeding Sandpiper in  North America. They migrate to the southern United States, the Caribbean and South America for the winter and are rare vagrants to western Europe.

Very much like the common sandpiper they also bob up and down, bobbing their tail up and down while feeding. The function of the sandpiper tail-bobbing is unknown with guesses ranging from the mildly plausible such as aiding in balancing on rough terrain to the absurd such as pumping body oils over their feathers to improve waterproofing.

15/05/2022 Elton Reservoir, Bury

Spotted Sandpiper: I couldn't resist another visit to Elton res and with another sunny day in the forecast and the baby out with Dawn for the day I thought I would have another go at the spot sand. 

With a full car park and dozens of dog walkers  and day trippers out in force I wasn't holding out much hope, especially when many of the dog walkers were allowing the dogs to run across the shore and into the water.  

Eventually I tracked down the group of birders who were watching the bird foraging on the western shoreline.  The bird would get regularly flushed, disappears and then return. 

I managed to crouch down hidden behind the trees and waited while the bird walked right past me within a few feet. 

Definitely worth a second visit. 

13/05/2022 Elton Reservoir, Bury

Spotted Sandpiper: Great find my Simon Warford, a top bloke to regularly patches Elton res. This was the third spot sand there is at the moment in the north west, with one in Cumbria and one turning up today in Cheshire. 

These distinctive shorebirds have bold, dark spots on their undersides during the breeding season., but during the winter months they lose most of their spots. So having a nice summer plumage bird is a real treat. 

Common Sandpiper: The spot sand gave us the runaround, having disappeared just as I arrived (typically) and it took awhile to relocate it and even longer to wait before it came closer.  

The bird was associating with a couple of common sandpiper feeding along the western sore line of the reservoir.   Some spot sands migrate short distances to the southern United States and Pacific Coast, but others travel as far as South America so to have this vagrant turn up in Bury is a big thing.  

It a bit of patience I managed to allow this common sand to approach me giving me a rare chance to get some point blank pictures.   

There were a few locals with dogs wading into the water and flushing everything along the shore, but in time they would return. 

Turnstone: Another great bird was this turnstone, usually they are found singly or in small groups along the coastline and only occasionally inland. 

Ringed Plover: Elton res was also playing host to a small flock of dunlin, turnstone, little ringed and ringed plovers as well as common sandpiper. 

It's a really nice time to go, not only to see the waders but there were also a ton of common swift feeding above the water.   

16/05/2017 Belvide Reservoir, Staffordshire

Spotted Sandpiper: One of the most widespread sandpipers in America, they typically spend their winters around the southern states to southern South America and are very scarce in the UK!

Saying that there are currently two twitchable summer plumaged birds in the UK at the moment, this one at Belvide Reservoir and another at Buttermere in the Lake District.

When I arrived the bird was out of sight for around 20 miniutes before it came out, albeit at some distance before flying right in front of the hide!

The the sound of camera shutters rapidly firing I was relived it came out, and so close!

Great to see some faces that I haven’t seen in a long while