First one back already

A green sandpiper on the muddy edge by the sluice, bobbing away to itself in that constant, slightly anxious way they have, like it had never been anywhere else. Flushed it once by accident getting too close, and it went up calling — that sharp, clean three-note whistle that always sounds more urgent than the bird actually seems to be.

Felt too early to call it autumn, standing there in a t-shirt with the swifts technically still around at that point, but apparently the waders disagree with me. Green sandpipers are usually one of the first signs that return passage has properly started — adults that failed to breed, or finished early, drifting back south while everything else is still raising second broods.

It's an odd one to get used to: the birding year turning over in early August while the calendar insists it's still high summer. No fanfare, no obvious cue, just one small brown-and-white bird on a muddy edge, a good six weeks before anyone else seems to notice the season's changed direction.