About 10 minutes later we were looking at a moulting adult, feeding very close by. A Lapwing took exception to it's presence several times and it then went to the shingle island. Various local patchers arrived and saw it before we realised it was missing around 12:35.
It couldn't be found before Marek had to leave, only for it to re-appear 20 minutes after that, I was told it went to sleep, so fingers crossed it will reamin for Marek to get a rare DP lifer.
So the past records look like this, ones on italics are unconfirmed;
May 2nd 1983 - Sandford (FJC)
April 18th 1987 - BSL sailing club beach (RJC et al)
May 14th & 15th 1988 - Lavell's Tern scrape (ADB et al)
May 8th 1993 - Sandford (Observer Unknown)
Oct 20th 1995 - Lavell's (Observer Unknown)
May 30th 1999 - BSL sailing club beach (BTB)
Feb 1st 2012 - Lavell's (RNM & Les Seward) Not wholly confirmed
July 29th 2015 - LFGP (Andy Burns et al)
Having a July Sanderling is unprecedented and the best bird this year.
As always, if anyone knows more about the records (OU), then do let me know, because it is a very rare visitor to DP and it would be great to confirm more of the 8 reported records. There might be other records to come out of the woodwork in 1998, or 2000.
Here are my record shots, sadly it flew to the island before I could shots, Andy will be sending me some great ones, I'll share these on our Facebook page.
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