October 2014 – a housecall revealed the sandpiper reduced to a sausage of scrunchy fluff: beak down among the breast “feathers” and legs completely incapable of supporting any weight at all. The magnets were out of true, and no manipulation would bring them back. So off to the workshop went the sandpiper, for a magnet-ectomy followed by serious wire reinforcement and new wool-and-wax to hold the legs in place.

Good as new, though not so versatile....