Strangers On the Shore

It has been a good year so far for ‘firsts’.  It was the first time I’ve photographed a stonechat and then the second first was the meadow pipit.  I was fair chuffed!

Then on today’s beach walk I saw some ‘strangers’ on the shore.  I didn’t think they were strangers at first as from a distance their silhouettes looked very much like those of oystercatchers.  It turned out to be a wrong spy!

I photographed from as close as I could get before they took off flying out to sea.  I wasn’t convinced that they were oystercatchers as there was no sound of the peep, peep, peeps that they make in flight.

Uploaded the images to my iPad and the data informed me that they were  Bar-Tailed Godwits!  I never ever expected to see godwits on Cruden Bay beach.  Perhaps I haven’t and this is another ‘wood mouse v bank vole’ situation and my data has let me down again.

To be honest all I know is they are not oystercatchers!  I hoping that this will be a hat-trick of firsts … unless you know better?

In the extras there’s a photo of other waders I saw today, sanderlings with two turnstones in their midst.

Better viewed large!