Buff-breasted Sandpiper; I had not even heard of this bird. This was before the news that came in the birding community WhatsApp groups in Oct 2023. The bird had been sighted in Madayi Para, a laterite patch in Kannur, Kerala, India.

Now why was this making big news? The Buff-breasted Sandpiper is considered a vagrant to India. It has been sighted once before and it was making its appearance again after 10 years. And that too at the same place as the first time. And coincidentally, this time too it was first sighted by the same person as the first time! Now what are the odds of that happening ?!

This bird has super rarity status as far as the Indian sub-continent is concerned. Hence many birders here were interested in getting to see it. And I was no different. This time it was going to be Rahul and me only as the others were away travelling. We started early morning from Bangalore. and reached Kannur around noon. We of course birded along the way. The memorable part was listening to bird calls when driving through the Brahamagiri Wildlife Sanctuary. There was almost a constant calling of the visiting Large-billed Warblers and Greenish Warblers.

Upon arrival in Kannur, we headed straight to our hotel first, checked in and then had lunch. Post a short break, we headed off to Madayi Para to look for the Buff-breasted Sandpiper. The next 2.5 hours was spent walking around the place in search of the bird. This included the “usual” patch where it had been seen over the last few days. Our efforts helped us see many of the usual suspects, but did not yield us the Buff-breasted Sandpiper. Here is a White-bellied Sea-Eagle that was seen at the “pond”.

Dusk fell and we headed back to our hotel.

Next morning we were back at the site by 6:20am. And the search began 😃. 45 minutes into the session, there was sudden excitement; the star had made it’s appearance ! Rahul and I quickly headed to where it was. We spent the next 1 hour observing the bird doing its thing. Here are some photos that I took of it:

We were all content with the viewings we got of the bird.

We were to head back home only the next day. Hence we decided to do another session at Madayi Para the next morning. There were plenty of birders around, all eagerly waiting for a chance to see the visitor. This time though, the bird did not show up. A couple of hours later, we decided to start back on our journey home. We wondered how long the bird would stick around. We also pondered when it may next make its return to the Indian shores. Well, only time would answer 🙂.

Video

Here is a short video I made of the bird foraging.

https://youtu.be/neO_uoJbuds

Want to know about my other twitches? You can check out one here and here.