Pectoral Sandpiper at Brockholes Quarry, Lancs.

9th July 2004.

Tony Disley.

Having arranged to visit a friend in Greater Manchester on the evening of 9th July, I thought a check of both Brockholes Quarry (my local Patch) and Rumworth Lodge en route would be a good idea. With the Quarry looking particularly attractive for waders and Little ringed Plovers at record numbers, I arrived hoping for maybe an increase in LRP's or hopefully some new wader species. I was not to be dissapointed!

I got out of the car and had a quick scan from the road, initially seeing nothing new. I then walked up the well trodden banking by the log and had another scan with my bins from the more elevated position.

As I scanned the usual large July flock of Lapwing, a few Little ringed Plover appeared amongst the flock before my attention was grabbed by a distant small Calidrid, "Probably a Dunlin, but it does look long- winged", I thought to myself before walking down to the car to get my scope.

Setting up my tripod and scope I had no real sense of excitement until I looked at the bird, this time at 20x and was delighted to see a fantastic Pectoral Sandpiper walking about among the Lapwings.

This more than made up for the juvenile 'Pec' I missed at the Quarry in September 2003. Whilst I was away for a month on North Ronaldsay, I remember logging onto the Birdguides website in the Bird Observatory one evening only to read 'Juv Pec Sand at Brockholes Quarry' on the sightings page and feeling thoroughly gripped, especially with it being a member of my favourite bird family and at my local patch!

However all that was forgotten as I texted local birders then sat back and enjoyed this delightful wader in the warm evening sunshine.

The bird stayed generally in the middle of the main pool and thus was awkward to get good images in the heat haze, but a minutes worth of video footage was taken from which the four video grabs which accompany this account were taken.

Ageing of the bird is difficult, it is clearly either an adult or a 1st summer bird, but ageing of Pectoral Sandpipers in the summer months seems to be reliant on seeing the primaries well and noting contrast between the outer and inner primaries. Unfortunately the views were not conducive to scrutinise the bird for this feature.

  Tony Disley (6/8/04).

Click here to read article and view images of the first site record.