Purple Sandpiper Twitch!

Mike Tabak, Ilya Povalyaev, Quentin Brow, Peter Candido and I went over to Victoria BC to get BC's first Purple Sandpiper. This bird was my favorite twitch of 2017. Jeremy Gatten found this bird on Dec 30th and identified it as a Purple Sandpiper. The bird was around before he found it but thought to be an aberrant Rock Sandpiper. Kudos to Jeremy Gatten for thinking outside of the box. I sent flight shots of photos of this bird from several individuals to shorebird experts including Kevin Karlson, Peter Pyle, Michael O'brien and it was concluded that this bird was a Purple Sandpiper. It still needs to be reviewed by the BC Bird Records Committee to be accepted to the official BC list but there is no doubt that this is a Purple Sandpiper after speaking to experts.

Our group was lucky that when we went the Sandpiper approached the rocks we were sitting on at Kitty Islet. This bird became difficult later on with distant scope views only on little Trial Island. This bird was last seen on April 25th.

 You can read more about this sighting at my other blog the BC RBA HERE

Purple Sandpiper on Kitty Islet in Victoria - Photos: Melissa, Hafting

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