Spotted Sandpiper

A Spotted Sandpiper had recently turned up at the National Water Sports Centre at Holme Pierrepont at the end of the White Water section were it meets the River Trent, although we had seen one before at Tittesworth Reservoir back in 2008 (in fact this was the first rare bird Lesley and me ever saw) but I thought it would be nice to see another as it was only in Notts plus a Long Tailed Duck was also on site in the rowing lake.

We made our way to the White Water Course following directions from a few returning chaps and were soon watching this wader which was just quite happy walking along the grassy bank on the lock side of the course.

After this the more tricky job of finding a small duck on a large lake began, we headed to the 250m mark on the lake where it had last been seen but just couldn't locate it so we moved further along towards the start line. Lesley eventually found it on the far shore by the club house so I dashed around to see if I could grab a few shots. As up to now all the Long Tailed Ducks I had ever seen were small dots in the middle of lakes.