Waders at Ynyslas and Ynys-hir
A very cold sea watch with Keith W at the brick house yesterday morning and I gave up too early as he had an arctic skua flying south after I left. At the tern posts there were better wader numbers with 120 ringed plovers, 340 dunlin, 11 sanderling, two grey plovers and a turnstone.
At RSPB Ynyshir in the afternoon I arrived at the Ynys Feurig hide
to find it full. After a ten minute wait at a bench lower down the group left
and I started scanning from the hide. Lovely to see both redshank and lapwing
chicks but then I realised that there was a female ruff feeding avidly on one of
the ditches. Enjoying this a small wader scurried in front of the ruff and I
realised I had a stint. Prolonged views made me suspicious that it was a
Temminck's stint (although distant) and with Tom Kistruck and David Anning
arriving this was confirmed. Managed to confirm paler legs
later.
Russell Jones