St Aidan's

Heron, coots, greylags and Canada geese
The sign appears to be bait for photographers, it seemed churlish not to.

I spent a sunny Thursday running errands and reading, I should really have been catching up with writing and housework but it is as it is. Friday began with a spot of rain and the first blackcap of Autumn in the back garden, a male in pristine plumage helping a couple of blackbirds to strip berries off a Pyracantha branch.

St Aidan's is one of the unvisited sites I've been fretting about. Reports of a Baird's sandpiper there gave me a very good reason to give it a visit. Ordinarily it's a straightforward journey with a through train to Castleford from Piccadilly but track improvements are going on that line so I had to go via Sheffield and Wakefield. It was grey and gloomy as I left Manchester, Sheffield was bright but cloudy and the sun kept promising to show its face as I got off at Castleford and got the 140 bus to Ferry Lane. The latest report on the Baird's sandpiper was that after being on site for three days it had just done a runner and couldn't be relocated. I'd just be having a walk through a very pleasant nature reserve on a nice Autumn day. There are worse things in this life.

River Aire

A mixed tit flock bounced through the trees on the Methley side of the River Aire. Three goosanders flew downstream and out of sight as I reached the bridge and crossed over to St Aidan's. I was greeted by the first of very many migrant hawkers I'd be bumping into today.

St Aidan's 
I'm looking back here.

I tiptoed between common darters sunning themselves on the causeway. The large, open pool on my right was dotted about with coots, tufted ducks, great crested grebes and mute swans and a flock of black-headed gulls fussed about on the pool beyond. A small flock of swallows passed by. The tree-lined pool to my left was lined with small groups of mallards, coots, gadwalls, wigeons and tufted ducks. 

Gadwalls and wigeon
This time of year you can see they're closely related.

Looking over towards the Eastern reedbeds 

I encountered a group of people looking for an osprey that had been reported. I scanned round where they were looking and found a lot of carrion crows and a female-type marsh harrier but I had no luck finding the osprey. I moved on so I wouldn't be jinxing the others and split my time checking out the pools and looking out for passing raptors.

The pools by the path were busy with birds. Greylags, Canada geese, herons and little egrets loafed on the sides. Mallards, gadwalls, teal, shovelers and wigeons dabbled, tufted ducks, coots and great crested grebes cruised about, cormorants spent more time underwater than above and every little mudbank was peppered with waders, mostly lapwings. A dumpy sandy brown bird amongst one group of lapwings on the other side of one pool was a juvenile golden plover, it took far too long for the penny to drop that the dull grey counterpart asleep closer to hand was a grey plover. A few snipe pottered about and some dunlins loafed with lapwings.

Lapwings, snipes and dunlins

All of a sudden the waders, and a lot of the teals, were up. I looked round for the bird of prey and eventually found it, a red kite cruising low over the reserve over the Eastern reedbeds, drifting out towards the fields beyond.

Red kite
Not by any means a great photo but I was glad to finally get any sort of a record shot of one.

It took about five minutes after the kite had drifted away for the waders to come back. The snipes stuck with the lapwings but the dunlins split off on their own and settled on some mud with the grey plover. I had a good look at them with no great hopes of finding anything but dunlins. Given that Baird's sandpipers are long distance migrants between high Arctic Canada and Tierra del Fuego, "It won't have gone far," didn't seem applicable. One bird caught my eye, though, as it was smaller than the others, which doesn't mean a lot as dunlins come in mixed small, medium and large sizes. There was a chap with a telescope just nearby so I asked him what he made of it.

"I think they're all dunlins but you're welcome to have a look for yourself, I'm no good at small sandpipers."

I admitted I'm rubbish at peeps myself and that it probably was a small dunlin, and when I looked through the telescope so it was, toddling out of view stage right. Scuttling into view from that direction was something else again, a very different bird to the dunlins. "Stuff me!" I said when the penny dropped, which I think was a model of restraint, "I think we've got the Baird's!" 

A little later as I'd moved on, I started second-guessing myself. The report of the Baird's having flitted worried me so I sat down and made notes on what I'd seen, just in case I'd been mistaken and seen something else entirely. I knew what the bird wasn't but there's a cavalcade of small sandpipers I just don't know.

• A small "peep," the same length as the smallest of the dunlins but a smaller bird
• Low slung, attenuated, a very horizontal bird, possibly because it was on the rush, being lead by the beak
• Bit like a common tern amongst black-headed gulls; short-legged, slighter, a lot of length to the back half but not so much body that end
• Short but not dumpy legs — proportion something between snipe and dunlin — long wings projecting beyond tail, straight-backed incline from shoulder to wingtip, a bit small-headed
• Back and wings brighter, more contrasty than the dunlins, like a little stint but without the white braces over the shoulder
• Underparts white, abrupt cut-off from brown upper breast/lower throat similar to a pectoral sandpiper but higher up breast (too small, wrong shape for pec)
• Bill similar to shorter-billed individuals amongst the dunlins but perhaps finer
• A busier bird than the dunlins, in a hurry as it bustled past them, sanderling-like scurry

Hitting the reference books back home I could only make this bird either a Baird's sandpiper or a white-rumped sandpiper and I hadn't seen the prominent white eyebrow of the latter, so I can only think it a Baird's. I'll admit I was rattled when I saw a report of Baird's sandpiper at St Aidan's for about the time I was there then a correction saying it had been erroneous as a Baird's had turned up at Fairburn Ings down the road. I might be wrong, I don't know.

Once I'd made my notes I moved on and left them alone to worry over tonight. There were more ducks and coots and egrets. Cetti's warblers sang from unlikely patches of gorse and field bindweed, linnets and goldfinches twittered past, magpies rummaged about on the paths. Migrant hawkers zipped past, common darters danced about my ankles and bees and hoverflies flitted between Michaelmas daisies and knapweeds.

St Aidan's 

I checked out the map and train times and realised that I could walk to Woodlesford Station from here and get the train home from Leeds. So I followed the path that curved round then past Astley Lake and thence to the bridge over the river at the Aire Wave.

A small group were staring over a corner of Astley Lake. Apparently I'd missed the osprey flying over Swillington Ings. I joined them for a while then moved on, I reckoned I should be looking at the same stretch of trees as I walked up the Aire to the canal towpath that would take me into Woodlesford.

The Aire Wave

Another mixed tit flock bounced through the trees by the river as I crossed the bridge and robins sang at each other either side of the path. I was right, there was a good view of those trees from this side of the river even if I didn't avail myself of the hide on the bankside (I wasn't convinced my knees were up to the climb up). And yes, there were some raptors: three buzzards including one very vocal individual that almost certainly was a juvenile bird. Jackdaws and carrion crows flew hither and thither as I checked out the moorhens and mallards on the river. Then a couple of red kites drifted over the reserve. So no, I didn't get to see the osprey but I was seeing plenty of other birds of prey, which seemed to be the theme for the week.

The hide by the Aire, Astley Lake over the other side of the river

The Aire and Calder Navigation 

Goldfinches twittered and acorn-laden jays flew about Water Haigh Country Park. Mallards and gadwalls pottered about on the Aire and Calder Navigation. It was an extremely pleasant walk. I had ten minutes to wait for the train to Leeds, most of which I needed as I was baffled as to how to find platform one which was hidden in a corner beyond a maze of fences. At Leeds I was dead lucky, the train waiting just down the platform was the very crowded late-running train to Manchester. It started raining when we reached Todmorden.