Wandering tattler wanders back...

Wandering tattler - Ogden Point

As I mentioned in my post More Flats Birding last week, it's about that time of year for the first wandering tattler to show up in the Victoria area.
These charismatic waders are not exactly rare on Vancouver Island, but they're uncommon enough to generate a fair amount of interest from local birdwatchers. Most years there are usually a handful of records from scattered localities, but here in the south island Ogden Point is just about the most consistent site for them.
Having failed to locate one last weekend, this afternoon I decided to give it another go. The tide was pretty high and as I scanned around the few exposed rocks in the pilot dock harbour I soon spotted the distinctive shape of a snoozing tattler.

A fisherman walking along the lower tier of the breakpoint soon flushed it and it flew fortuitously toward me, landing just a few metres away. Thrusting my pocket digital camera up to the eyepiece of my 'scope, I got a quick shot of it before it few off once again (pic above). The bird was quite mobile, moving frequently from one area to another, but eventually settled back on its original rock (second pic).
If last year is anything to go by, this bird could well stick around for a while. One remained at Ogden Point into August in 2011, and there were 2 birds tattlers present on one day in late July.