Azores time - Cabo da Praia delivers again

I flew out from London yesterday morning, a couple of days in advance of the guys that I'll be taking on the now annual Azores pelagic. After a smooth flight, I arrived on Terceira early evening and naturally headed straight down to the quarry at Cabo da Praia. With expectations pretty low after what seems to have been a pretty static summer mid-Atlantic, I was overjoyed to find three new yanks - best of all was a juvenile Least Sandpiper (is this the earliest ever juvenile in the WP?): -

juvenile Least Sandpiper Cabo da Praia, Terceira 21st August 2015

I was also a bit pumped up with this juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper. As I say every year, you can't call it the autumn until you've got your first displaced Nearctic youth wader under your belt. A nice long-billed bird, presumably a female fresh out of the far eastern Canadian Arctic.

juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper Cabo da Praia, Terceira 22nd August 2015

Semipalmated (left) and Least Sandpiper (right) Cabo da Praia, Terceira 21st August 2015

Predictably for this time of year, the third new yank was an adult White-rumped Sandpiper. And along with Semipalmated Plover and Redshank (a decent bird out here), that was an eventful first evening and as always really good to be out here again.

Today was a bit of a relaxation day, what with the manic nature of the two days I was in school doing all the results stuff being sandwiched in between coming here and getting back from Ecuador. Nevertheless, there was still some good birds to be had with a similar line up in the quarry to yesterday, less the Least Sand but with a Hudsonian Whimbrel and Curlew Sandpiper instead. And a trip up to the centre of the island was typically hard work, though a Glossy Ibis that has been about for a while decided to show itself at Lagoa do Junco.

Glossy Ibis Lagoa do Junco, Terceira 22nd August 2015

A fair bit of time has been spent with the atlantis Yellow-legged Gulls in the harbour at Praia da Vitoria. Loads of photos to delight you with at a later date of course.