Green Sandpiper

After yesterday's dour day, this morning dawned sunny and warm, and I made a snap decision to go to Slimbridge. I had a good time and recorded forty one species, including three that were new for the year and one lifer. The latter was a Pectoral Sandpiper, a bird that breeds in Alaska and Siberia and winters in South America, Australia and New Zealand, and only rarely gets blown to these shores. It was being madly twitched around the reserve by a sizeable group of enthusiasts, but was playing hard to get, and though I saw it twice through other people's scopes, the views were so distant that I didn't even try to take any photos. Luckily it presented itself rather better to an owling friend of mine a few days ago, so at least I know what it looks like.

Far more obliging was this Green Sandpiper, which noodled back and forth near the Robbie Garnett hide for quite a while, allowing me plenty of photo opportunities. This is a species that breeds in Scandinavia and Russia, and then migrates south across a very wide front: some birds move south eastwards into southern Asia, while others head down to central Africa. A few overwinter in Europe, and of these the UK is thought to host about a thousand each year. It can turn up at almost any muddy site, from estuaries to farm ponds, and feeds on aquatic invertebrate larvae, worms, snails, and small shellfish.

While I was watching it, another photographer told me that - very unusually for a wader - the Green Sandpiper breeds in trees, where it re-uses abandoned thrush and woodpigeon nests. He also said that conservationists in Scotland have been trying to encourage it to breed in the Caledonian Forest, by collecting old nests from hedgerows and sticking them to suitable tree branches, which they achieve by use of a mastic gun. I laughed heartily at this, because it was as good a Birder's Tale as I've heard in a long time, but he assured me that it was true, and I told him that when I blogged the bird I would quote his story. 

This evening I've been able to confirm that the Green Sandpiper does indeed nest in trees, and likes to re-use old nests built by other birds. My RSPB handbook also confirms that small numbers stay in Scotland all year round, and that each year a few of them attempt to breed; and recommends that conservation work on mixed-age forests and wet woodlands in Scotland should take account of this and other specialist breeding birds. However, disappointingly but perhaps unsurprisingly, there's no mention of nest relocation or mastic, so I'll leave you to decide whether or not you think this element of the story is true. Personally I think that it's so ridiculous, it just might be.