Farmoor Purple Sandpiper

I was in the middle of an evening Zoom call when my mobile rang. It's quite an unusual time for a call - I noted that it was fellow county birder EU calling but somehow didn't twig as to what this could mean. Towards the end of my meeting which normally goes on to 8:30 pm he called again. Once again I declined the call but quickly checked on-line where I soon discovered the reason for his persistence: Purple Sandpiper at Farmoor!! Now this species has only been seen once in the county since I started birding back in 2008 and I was away at the time so this would be a mega grip back county tick for me. Still I was stuck in my meeting for which I really needed 100% concentration. Fortunately it wound up 15 minutes earlier than usual so I got my gear together and hurried off.

En route I gave EU a quick call on the hands-free and he told me not to park in the car park (it was getting rather late now anyway and there would be a danger of being locked in) but instead to go down the side road towards Lower Whitley Farm and make my way in that way. There was thankfully very little traffic and I made good time. As I was passing the main car park EU pulled out and escorted me to the spot I needed to go. Within a few minutes I was parked up and yomping the few yards along the causeway towards a very relaxed looking handful of Oxon's finest. The Sandpiper turned out to be asleep just a few yards away on the bank and didn't seem to mind birders coming quite close to take photos. However the light was so bad that most of my efforts turned out to be rubbish.

The best I could manage in the gloomy conditions

As usually happens in such situations we soon got to chatting about birding instead of looking at the bird - with my county tick under my belt it was all very relaxed and pleasant. Finally, one of us bothered to look at the bird again to discover that it has woken up and was now feeding half heartedly along the shoreline. I can only guess that it was very tired after it's long journey. Anyway, it was a great opportunity to take some close up video.

Video is much more forgiving in poor light conditions and the bird allowed very close approach

Eventually it started to get rather dark so I wandered back to the car and drove the short distance back into Oxford and back to Casa Gnome. It had been nice to go out a county twitch again: my first of this year and a great interruption of my meeting. As a post script, news broke the next morning that the bird was still around so those who hadn't been able to make it the first evening were able to connect. I wonder how long it will linger.