Curlews are fairly common along the Golspie waterfront, working the sands and muds for their meals. Compared to curlews we've come across elsewhere, these ones allow us to approach reasonably close, though they'll fly before either the oystercatchers or the redshanks.
Curlews are classed as waders and I had assumed that they didn't swim - but they do! When I first saw this curlew, I thought it was a small goose, until its bill became visible. While I watched, it swam about thirty metres, very confidently, as if it had done it many times before, until....
....it reached water shallow enough for it to stand, when it spent a moment or two preening itself before....
....it spotted me and began walking back into the deeper water. Perhaps it thought better of launching into another swim as, at that point, it took off.
A swimming curlew is obviously not a common sight as I couldn't find any reference to it on the internet except at the
Shropshire Birder site, which has a good picture of one taking a swim.
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