No time to stagnate: Marsh Sandpiper and upland birds

Any day that includes a noticeable change in habitats is a day I enjoy.  I love the way that moving from lowland to upland changes the bird species that I can see, and hills are one of two primal landscapes that seem to unlock something in me.  Don't get me wrong, I love deep forest, and I love heathland, and the peat mosses of home are the bones of me.  But the rolling hills of the Lakes and the Dales unlock something in me that makes me feel alive.  Like stopping to catch my breath in a place where I can truly relax.  So a journey to Durham to see Marsh Sandpiper had to include some upland birding on the way back.  To miss out on the Dales and the Becks would make it a poor day.

Marsh Sandpiper is a bird I've encountered once or twice before.  Seeing more than a dozen at Pont du Gau in the south of France in summer 2024, and the stop-start popped tyre and broken SD card of my two attempts to see the bird in Musselburgh last summer have left contrasting impressions of this neat and tidy, charismatic little wader.  On the one hand, their proximity in the beautiful sun of Provence is associated with one of the happiest times of my adult life, my family on a fantastic holiday to a place of real culture and history.  On the other, a failed journey and a near breakdown from the pressure and stress I put on myself last year when I wasn't in the best of health.  Strange that I associate significant times with the birds I saw in those situations - did I have other memory building blocks before I came back to birding?  I wonder what they were, and I wonder why I can't recall them now.

A recent fascination with the scientific names of birds and the Greek and Latin and neo-Latin origins of the words used to describe birds had me searching for information about Tringa stagnatilis.  "Tringa" is from the Greek "Trungus", meaning to wade.  A wading-bird, or wading-creature.  "Stagnatilis" seemed familiar, and it should be - the same root word describes water that has no flow, that has stopped; stagnated.  "Stagnatilis" means water with no current, a marsh.  The Marsh Stalker, the Bog Strider, the Stagnant Water Walker - all seem more appropriate for a bird called a Sandpiper that has little to do with sand most of the time.  And there it was, distantly, at Boldon Flats, on the edge of the flood water.  It wasn't phased by the proximity of Teal or Herring Gulls, Mallards didn't bother it and Curlews tolerated it with all the respect necessary by the king of wading birds: ie, none.  Lapwings seemed to hate it, and Moorhens chased the poor little wader about like Pacman hunting ghosts.  That Marsh Sandpiper ran and weaved and flew until it was as far away as possible on the water's edge.  Which is my excuse for the execrable photos I took of such a handsome bird.  It was good to meet up with Matt D again, who I first met at the Blue-winged Teal in East Yorkshire in March 2025, and a few other familiar faces from BlueSky.  The community of birders is big, but I've found it to be very welcoming and the encouragement of others to keep on birding, writing, taking bad photographs always helps.

A cold hour of watching the Marsh Sandpiper left us in need of coffee, and we headed into the Dales, stopping at an oddly located hotel and cafe for the biggest bacon barm of my life. A little sleepy from the huge food, we arrived at a location we had heard was good for Red Grouse and the real target bird, Ring Ouzel.  I love Ouzels.  One of my favourite memories of early birding with my dad (who wasn't ever a birder but who drove me to some far-flung places when I was a teen in order to see more birds) when we went to Haweswater to see England's last nesting pair of Golden Eagles in the mid 1990s.  Ring Ouzels were everywhere on that scorching summer day, their calls and their silvery scales a keystone memory of the whole day - a rare unambiguously happy memory of my teenage years.

Kris is a young, fit, healthy man who runs a lot and hikes a lot.  I... am not.  Looking up the scree and seemingly bloody vertical slopes I assumed I was going to be in pain before too much longer, and my premonition was correct.  Huffing and puffing, dragging my leg like Long John Silver had been in a bar fight and lost, wondering if I could even make my way back down with dignity as Kris bounded up the slope like a mountain goat in the Enhanced Games, I wondered if it was worth it to see this bird.  After all, there have been over twenty reported close to home on passage - I could just do a little trip out to see them locally.  But then seeing a Ring Ouzel in its breeding range is something special.  Mountain Blackbirds, for me, should be seen on mountains (or at least proper hills!) - in the place where I breathe freely and feel alive.  So on I plodded.  And it was worth it.  Though I never got any photos of the Ring Ouzels, we saw a pair repeatedly higher up the slope, and so we climbed to try and get above their favoured plateau, to wait them out and get some pictures.  Sadly, we lost them in the heather and by this point time was ticking.  

My descent was less than dignified.  Kris ran down the hill like Legolas on snow.  

Red Grouse were all around us, bold and loud, and it was a joy to watch them whirr madly past on frantic wings or run sure-footed with white feathers spilling over their feet, their weird luminous combs inflated and crimson with the season.  I often lost a male Red Grouse in the deep heather with their gorgeous camouflage, but would see the red combs like a small avian Jaws fin breaking the surface and trying to sneak past us in a wide circle, red brake lights on the front of the bird giving away their presence.

So a day of varying experiences, and all joyous in their way.  I sometimes feel bad if I don't get a decent picture of the rare bird I'm aiming to see because it feels poor to write a blog without a worthy image for people to enjoy while they endure my writing, but in this case, I'm happy to stick the only good photos I took all day as a header: Red Grouse are beautiful, comical, tragical, but they're always a symbol of the uplands I love.