I wasn't feeling all that chipper yesterday morning after a really bad nights sleep and then once up and about the weather was depressing and gloomy. However, by the end of the day, as I drove home back to Exeter, Jenny and I reflected on what a great day it had turned out.  The weather had brightened up, I had seen and photographed Volucella zonaria earlier in the day and then I had gone over to Seaton Marsh because I thought I might get some better photographs of Wood Sandpiper which is a bird that I photographed in 2008 but it was a poor image. While I had been away in Minorca a group of 30 Wood Sandpiper had suddenly turned up at Seaton and I hoped that one or two may still be there. I even managed to persuade my wife to come with me which she has only done once or twice in the last 5 years!  She hates birding with me because of a total lack of interest in wildlife and finds sitting in bird hides pretty tedious at best and downright boring in the main.  She confessed to me that she was amazed to see how many seemingly ordinary people are so interested in birds!  Once we got there it was like being in some kind of wonderful aviary, interesting birds were everywhere. I hadn't heard the news before I left home but a Spotted Crake had been seen earlier in the day so when other birders in the hide were ignoring the beautiful Wood Sandpipers and mentioning the Crake I didn't know what to focus the camera on.  The Crake won of course and I managed to see it momentarily and then with a bit of patience it showed long enough for me to get a shot or two even though it was a distant shot – another species for my Devon gallery – 216 Devon species now.

This is possibly one of my worst ever photographs but it's a pretty good bird for Devon so I am glad of it but, back to the Wood Sandpipers.  One of the Tringa sandpipers it's related to the Redshank, Greenshank and Lesser Yellow legs amongst others which to my eyes it resembled quite considerably.  Whilst we were there the light got better and better and when one of the two still present moved close to the hide I took a series of very nice images.

Amongst all the goodies was a nice little group of Ruff which I have photographed here at Seaton before but I managed to improve on my photographs of this species as well.

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I had almost forgotten that early September is such a good month for wading birds and at this time of the year there is always some nice birds to choose from, here's two more species, the first is a juvenile Ringed Plover and then a Common Sandpiper.

So all in all it was a great session. I plan to return to get some shots of the Curlew Sandpiper and Little Stint that I just didn't manage.