(limosa lapponica)
The Bar-tailed Godwit is an elegant winter visitor which is a frequent sight along the shore line. It breeds further north on tundra and bogs in the northernmost taiga areas of Scandinavia and western Russia. It is quite common to see returning non breeding birds appearing on our estuaries as early as July still showing their striking breeding plumage. Sites like Musselburgh and Aberlady in Lothian usually have wintering flocks of a few hundred birds.