Hobby ornithologist Merike Hiibus photographed one of the birds at Kakumäe Beach on Friday, September 22. The species usually nests in North America and winters in Central and South America. The birds have only rarely been spotted in Western Europe and only twice in Finland.

Hiibus wrote on her Facebook page that she was out taking pictures of dunlins so she could count them at home. Once there, what she had initially thought was a curlew sandpiper turned out to be a bird she did not recognize.

If the Estonian Rare Bird Sightings Committee confirms Hiibus' observation, the stilt sandpiper will become the 401st species of bird spotted in Estonia.

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