Little stint is a bird I tried to photograph here in Devon a few years ago with very little success so I was very pleased to see three had turned up on my local patch. The Skern (or inconsiderate dog owners beach) as it should be named quite often gets a few nice birds turn up, but because of the amount of human and canine activity it can at times be a frustrating place to try and get a photograph.

On arrival we could see a small group of waders through binoculars around a flooded pool but they were quickly flushed by someone throwing a frisby for their dog to catch along the waters edge, obviously they had no idea the tiny birds were there or that we were about to to try and slowly approach them.

After the walkers got to the over side of the pool and headed back towards the road we slowly made our way down. Camera 500mm and 2x tc attached we soon got in range and managed a few shots. After a short while we had spotted four birds and as they made there way towards us off came the 2x tc and on went the 1.4 shortly followed by no converter at all and finding the birds came that close to us focussing was at times impossible. We had and hour or so with the birds with no disturbance at all and some lovely evening light so a very enjoyable evening.

Little stintSkern, N.Devon