After an hour and a half laying flat out in goose droppings and wet mud, birder Will Bowell captured the images he was after.
A rare visitor to the UK, the Baird’s sandpiper he had been waiting for ventured within two metres of his camera lens.
Word had spread through the birding community that the juvenile wader, no bigger than a sparrow, had settled at Rutland Water and Will, who lives in Deeping St James, was keen to see it for himself.
The Baird’s sandpiper at Rutland Water, captured on camera by Will Bowell. Photo: Just Wild Images/Will Bowell
“It was only born this year and has come all the way from Alaska, having never seen humans before,” he said.
“Birds without experience of humans are fearless and so tend to come close.”
Will spent some of Friday last week (October 10) and the following day waiting at Whitwell for the sandpiper’s appearance.
The Baird’s sandpiper at Rutland Water, captured on camera by Will Bowell. Photo: Just Wild Images/Will Bowell
Sightings suggested it had been at a different location at Rutland Water but it had been seen feeding at Whitwell during the day, and that was where Will lay in wait on the muddy shoreline.
Thanks to his patience and respect for the bird’s nature and habits, Will was able to take his beautiful photographs of the youngster, which would have hatched earlier this year.
Baird’s sandpipers breed in the northern tundra from eastern Siberia in Russia, across Alaska and northern Canada to western Greenland, and migrate to South America for winter. The sighting in the UK has attracted well over 100 birders, keen to see a species usually thousands of miles out of reach.
“It was my grandparents who got me into the birding hobby,” said Will, a senior manager at Grasmere Farm.
Birder Will Bowell has travelled around the UK for his hobby, which started thanks to his grandparents. Photo: Just Wild Images
“They had a bird table in their garden, which encouraged me to take note of all the different species that visited, then they bought me my own bird table.
“My first birding trip was with them, along the Deeping High Bank. We were supposed to be heading all the way out to The Wash, but I stopped them so many times to look at herons and the like, we never made it that far.
“For me it is the experience of seeing the different birds that appeals. Watching their behaviours and getting to know the individual birds locally makes them easier to identify and photograph.
A skua flies within range of birder Will Bowell’s lens. Photo: Just Wild Images
“I also enjoy the social aspect. You get to know lots of people in the birding community.”
Will, who has just returned from a birding trip to the Shetland Islands with his dad, Raymond, says the rarest bird he has seen and photographed in the UK was a bearded vulture, a native of mountainous regions of Asia with only a small number of breeding pairs in the European Alps.
In the summer of 2020 he travelled to the Peak District in Derbyshire to photograph the distinctive, bone-eating bird with a 2.7m wingspan, describing it as a ‘once in a lifetime experience’ – only to for a ‘second chance in a lifetime’ to arrive a few weeks later, not far from Spalding.
Will’s favourites, however, are the native species of owls that he can watch and photograph just a stone’s throw from home. Their nocturnal nature allows him to go birding before and after work, often accompanied by his wife, Amy.
The Baird’s sandpiper at Rutland Water, captured on camera by Will Bowell. Photo: Just Wild Images/Will Bowell
More of Will’s wildlife photos can be found at justwildimages.blogspot.com and many of his photos and artworks are available as cards on his Etsy shopping page, justwildimages.co.uk
If you have photographed something out of the ordinary in this area, email news@lincsonline.co.uk.