After the unforeseen influx of Baird's Sandpipers across the UK which had begun during the previous week, I had been itching to get a slice of the action for myself. Luckily, the Cheshire bird at Coxbank did the decent thing and stayed long enough for myself and Marc to attempt a casual weekend twitch. After an hour or so drive to the site, we parked up the mini and walked over to the site where the Sandpiper had been spotted in recent days. As luck would have it, the bird was showing upon arrival. A birdwatcher with a telescope (an instrument that neither of us had) let us get a nice view through his telescope - one in which we could make out clearly the black speckles on the bird's flanks. Seeing the Baird's Sandpiper through our binoculars proved to be a somewhat more tricky affair, with the small stature and brown colour making the bird blend remarkably well with the surrounding mud. Yet we certainly couldn't complain with the views that we enjoyed in perfect lig...