A Little Little Stint

It was nice to see the lingering first-winter Little Stint again this morning, it was feeding with a group of five Dunlin half way up the Estuary at low tide. There were two more Dunlin further up river, to have a Dunlin to Little Stint ratio of 7:1 in November is pretty impressive! Be nice if it stayed as it would provide a handy year tick on January 1st, if one was that way inclined.

Little Stints always look small, but for some reason I often find the late autumn/winter birds appear really tiny...

No sign of either of our two recent Spoonbills today or yesterday, but I did manage to see the unringed bird briefly on and over Black Hole Marsh mid morning Tuesday.

This morning I also enjoyed another encounter with the lingering first-winter male Black Redstart, he was at Axe Yacht Club. In flight the pale wing panels were so striking I thought I had finally jammed into the elusive adult male, but when he turned and began flying back towards me I could see his underparts were grey and not black. I got some nice views though when he touched down, no Black Redstart could ever disappoint they are such characterful birds...