BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER: THREE AND COUNTING

 A juvenile Buff-Breasted Sandpiper (Tryngites subruficollis) was spotted on the morning of 13 September 2012 by Sergio Mayordomo at Portaje Reservoir in Cáceres (top photo). It was feeding on one of the reservoir banks on newly sprouted grass in the company of migrant Yellow Wagtails. At midday it was seen again by Eva Palacios and Miguel Ángel Muñoz (bottom photo).

This is the third record for the species in Extremadura, all made successively in the last three years (Valdecañas, October 2010; Galisteo, October 2011; and Portaje, September 2012). All were juveniles seen in the province of Cáceres. The sightings are too new to have been officially accepted by the rarities committee as yet, but in all three cases there are photographs that prove the identification beyond a shadow of a doubt.

This vagrant American wader is now turning up more regularly in Spain with 45 accepted records involving 49 birds up to 2009. This figures will no doubt rise in future reports because there were considerable influxes of this species in both 2010 and 2011, with 25-35 birds recorded each year. In 2012, so far, there have been at least two sightings in August and another on the same day of 13 September in Vilafáfila (Zamora). Paradoxically, this increase of records in Spain does not at all tally with the specie's trend as a whole, since its status has now been downgraded by the IUCN to "Near Threatened" (NT).

Other post on Buff-Breasted Sandpiper in Extremadura.

 A juvenile Buff-Breasted Sandpiper (Tryngites subruficollis) was spotted on the morning of 13 September 2012 by Sergio Mayordomo at Portaje Reservoir in Cáceres (top photo). It was feeding on one of the reservoir banks on newly sprouted grass in the company of migrant Yellow Wagtails. At midday it was seen again by Eva Palacios and Miguel Ángel Muñoz (bottom photo).

This is the third record for the species in Extremadura, all made successively in the last three years (Valdecañas, October 2010; Galisteo, October 2011; and Portaje, September 2012). All were juveniles seen in the province of Cáceres. The sightings are too new to have been officially accepted by the rarities committee as yet, but in all three cases there are photographs that prove the identification beyond a shadow of a doubt.

This vagrant American wader is now turning up more regularly in Spain with 45 accepted records involving 49 birds up to 2009. This figures will no doubt rise in future reports because there were considerable influxes of this species in both 2010 and 2011, with 25-35 birds recorded each year. In 2012, so far, there have been at least two sightings in August and another on the same day of 13 September in Vilafáfila (Zamora). Paradoxically, this increase of records in Spain does not at all tally with the specie's trend as a whole, since its status has now been downgraded by the IUCN to "Near Threatened" (NT).

Other post on Buff-Breasted Sandpiper in Extremadura.