November 1st

Purple sandpiper at Fife Ness yesterday

Purple sandpipers can be difficult birds to see but there is a fairly reliable flock down at Fife Ness at mid tide at the moment. Sit on the rocks just to the left of the hide and scan the weedy flatter rocks right at the water’s edge. Look hard – scan with faith – and you will see mouse like birds scurrying between the waves and the rocks. They pick about right up at the surf line, working the shifting edge of the land and the sea. If you sit a bit further out and have the patience to wait they will return and can end up foraging just a few meters away from you. Not shy, just inhabiting a space where we don’t really go. It’s worth it to get a close up view. They genuinely do have a purple gloss to their feathers. They are extreme birds, but don’t make a fuss, from high Arctic breeding sites (very occasionally even the tops of the Cairngorms), to the wave lashed rocks of Crail.