Classic Autumn Wader Pair and Magic Merlin

Reports of the two classic autumn waders paying their annual visit to the local mudflats drew me out, and it didn’t take me long to find them. The tide was out, but I noticed the large Dunlin flock swirling around at the water’s edge in the distance and set off on a mission. Gradually, the flock got used to my presence, and I was able to approach to within shooting range. There were a good few hundred waders in all, mostly Dunlin, and very soon I was quick to spot a few juvenile Curlew Sandpipers amongst them like this one:

What I didn’t expect to find was a single (and rare) summer-plumaged adult – as well as the reported Little Stint – an adult in winter plumage, I believe. These quickly became the focus of my bird photography over the next three hours, and to cut a long story short, I came away feeling rather satisfied. 500+ shots later, I had over 100 keepers – roughly equally split between the two species in question. (I’m not sure that I’ve even seen let alone photographed a summer-plumaged adult Curlew Sandpiper in Britain before, so to get great shots of this bird and my best ever of a ‘cold-plumaged’ adult Little Stint, quite unlike the usual cream and brown juvenile plumage, was the icing on the cake.) The light was generally good, and the lack of heat haze (at last) made generally clean images.

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Yes, they gave me the run around a little, but this was part of the fun and added to the sense of satisfaction once they did eventually play ball. I finished the day with a brief trip to my local patch and was thrilled to find a stunning adult male Merlin – albeit perched very distantly on one of the marsh fence posts on the other side of the river. (There were also 20+ Ruff here as well as a large Golden Plover flock.) So, all in all, a pretty good day.