Pectoral Sandpiper.

Champion Moor Flood, Lancashire, UK

06/05/2000 - 08/05/2000.

Bill Aspin.

On Saturday 6th May 2000, J.F. Wright, S.Flynn and myself (W.C. Aspin) arrived at Champion Moor Flood (3mls south of Stocks Reservoir, on the southern edge of Champion Moor), to check for the presence of any passage waders.We began to check the flood through binoculars from within the car. Amongst a small party of Dunlin and Ringed Plover was a larger Calidrid which immediatly demanded closer scrutiny.We quickly got a scope out from the boot of the car. JFW then scoped the bird and after a few seconds, announced that the bird was a Pectoral Sandpiper. Thereafter, the bird remained faithful to the site, and showed well, allowing decent record photographs to be taken, until last seen on the 8th May 2000 and was seen by many observers. Incredibly, this bird occured exactly 10 years to the day as the last (and up to this, only) record in the Stocks area, when one was present at Stocks Reservoir on 6-8th May 1990. Little did I realise at the time that I would go on to find a further two Pectoral Sandpipers in the Stocks Reservoir area in the year 2000! 

  Description.

Size/Jizz: Obviously larger than a Dunlin, nearer Green Sandpiper in size. A rather front-heavy jizz, with a relatively thin, attenuated body/rear-end. Small-headed, with a relatively long neck.

Bill: About the same length as the head, slightly decurved, dark in colour with a dull reddish base to the lower mandible. 

Eye: Appeared dark.

Head+Neck: The crown was rufous in colour with faint, dark streaking. The supercillium was mainly obvious behind the eye and was an off-white, very faintly streaked brown. A very obvious dark loral stripe was present. The cheeks were finely streaked light brown on an off white ground colour. The ear covert area was more rufous in colour. The nape showed a light grey/brown wash and was finely streaked brown , becoming much coarser and darker/thicker where the neck joined the mantle. These streaks extended round the sides and front of the neck, though the throat area was off-white and mostly devoid of streaking.

Breast: The bird was in fresh plumage, therefore, the breast feathering inc the pec band feathering had white tips. As a result, the bird did not show a really obvious breast/pectoral band, only a token pec band consisting of a row of browner feathers interspersed by white feathering.

Upperparts: The bird showed a fairly obvious mantle 'V', otherwise the mantle feathering consisted of small, dark centred feathers with pale fringes.The scapulars contained a few feathers showing large, dark centres with obvious, broad, pale fringing. The coverts were greyer in colour. The tertials and primaries were dark centred with broad pale fringes. The rump/uppertail was dark as was the central tail itself.The outer tial feathers appeared paler. 

Underparts: White except for a few light brown streaks along the fore-flanks.

Wings: In flight, appeared long-winged, with a narrow, pale wingbar visible. At rest, the wingtips were roughly the same lenght as the tail.

Legs: pale yellow-green, almost always held bent.

Call: "chirrp", only heard in flight and was commented on by myself and several observers, that it reminded us of Curlew Sandpiper's call.

Age: 1st summer/adult.

Accepted by the Lancashire rarities commitee.