In search of waders

Last weekend, I made a bit of a last minute decision to go down to Somerset for the day to see my good mate Dan Watson who had relocated down there in recent months. On the Friday, he had found a juvenile Grey Phalarope at his newish local patch of Cheddar Reservoir, or the cheese bowl as it was becoming affectionately named! So it would be cool to see his find and possibly try a few sites along the coast, in the hope of perhaps finding an american wader.

I arrived mid morning and we were soon down at the reservoir enjoying the Grey Phalarope, pootling between the Teal and other wildfowl along the muddy shore at the northern end. It's always a treat seeing a Grey Phalarope, they're a bit of a crowd pleaser. It also evoked memories of the Grimsbury one last year which Dan came to see too, so somewhat role reversal this year!

After a while we headed off to walk along Berrow Beach on the Severn estuary coast, to look for waders. There were particularly good numbers of Sanderling (including quite a few juveniles), some 30 or so Knot, Oystercatchers, c5 Dunlin and a few Ringos. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary but nice to see all the same.





Our final destination was Steart a little way further along the coast. It is a vast site and I imagine it would be an excellent site in winter. But considering how big it was and how good the habitat looked, there was hardly anything there! That said, what was there was pretty decent, with a juvenile Curlew Sandpiper, c4 Spotted Redshank, c5 Greenshank, 1 Green Sandpiper and a Wheatear.







Before hitting the road home, we popped back into Cheddar Res for another fill of the Phalarope. Surprise, surprise a guy with a large bazooka-like camera lens was camped out along the shoreline. While this may not have disturbed the bird, it was probably unsettling the wildfowl and gulls about in that area. After Dan said a few words, he soon left and low and behold a good number of birds returned to this area. Say no more!