Curlew Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper, Little Stint, action shots and ruthless murder... (BHM)

I'll keep this brief due to a lack of time.
I spent some of yesterday afternoon and most of today at BHM to see if the Curlew Sand was around (I learned that one had been seen, courtesy of Steve Waite's blog. Thanks Steve). It was showing distantly and light was atrocious as the sun was behind the bird. Needless to say the pics were backlit so I compensated with the exposure. I figure having some faded-looking colour detail (not really representative of the actual colour) is better than having a bird which appears black! So please excuse some of the pics looking odd. There are a couple of pics of the bird in sun (taken today) but they were even more distant... I can't win! I had an equally tough time taking pics of the Little Stint which was there too.
Now for a little explanation of the blog post title... The Curlew Sandpiper and Little Stint parts will be apparent in the pics to follow this waffle. Action shots refers to some Greenshanks which put on some flying displays (being bullied by gulls and other Greenshanks!!). The pics of these came out okay as they were feeling relatively brave regarding coming near to the island hide! Now for the ruthless murder... well in my last post, or the one before, I can't remember but can't be bothered to check; I wrote about Peregrines leaving a bird (presumed to be a small gull) dead on the BHM reserve. Well yesterday there was a similar event as all the gulls on the estuary and BHM flew up, and then I spotted a Peregrine flying close in front of the island hide. After the fuss had ended and the peregrine had departed, there was a dead mallard on a scrape near to the island hide which I'm SURE wasn't there before the Peregrine attacked. I asked the people in the hide and they agreed that the dead bird hadn't been there beforehand. Not trying to give these lovely birds of prey bad press, but they could at least eat their kills rather than leaving them to rot on the reserve!
So here are some recent pics. Quality is mediocre due to the shooting distances involved, perhaps with the exception of some of the Greenshank pics. Enjoy :-)

Peregrine Falcon

Sparrowhawk

Little Stint

Dunlin, Little Stint.

Ruff

Green Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint

Greenshank

Black-headed Gull, Greenshank

Greenshank x 2

Greenshank x 2

Greenshank

Black-headed Gull, Greenshank. Quite like this one.