Another Dose of Double Lifer Delight! Purrfect! 24th July 2021

After picking up two brilliant life ticks in the shape of the famous Black-browed Albatross and the fabulous Elegant Tern the weekend before, we were back on the lifer trail again the following Saturday. This time we had our sights on seeing two rare wading bird species that are usually encountered in North America and the very north of Siberia.

The first of the target birds, a Pacific Golden Plover, had been discovered at one of our favourite places, the RSPB reserve of Frampton Marsh, during the previous week. If we did get to see it then it would complete the Golden Plover hat trick for us since we already had our "usual" European Golden Plover and the scarce American Golden Plover on our lists. Pacific Golden Plover is the rarest of the three to visit the UK and according to the Collins Bird Guide ranks as a two-star rarity against the American Golden Plover's one-star.

We parked at the seaward carpark, as we usually do these days since most of the good birds are normally to be found at the that end of the reserve. The Pacific Golden Plover (PGP) was frequenting the grassland below the seawall and just a hundred metres or so from the carpark. It had however, chosen to spend much of its time hidden in Juncus grass and could be hard to see so it was necessary to walk along the seawall in order to get an elevated view of the grassland. Luckily the PGP had also chosen to hang out with a small flock of Lapwing which would narrow down the search a bit which we'd have to undertake ourselves because we couldn't see any other birders stood looking for the bird. We knew the PGP was still present though since it had been seen very early morning in front of the 360 hide and had flown over to the grassland where we now headed.

We were not alone on the bank of mud and grass that was constructed to keep the high spring tides out, around fifty cattle were also there. Mrs Caley doesn't like cows much, in fact she doesn't like them at all, so their close proximity to us while we looked for the PGP made for an uncomfortable vigil. Mostly the cows, actually bullocks, were well behaved but one of them, number 8, was an absolute pain and was, well, quite bullish, and always seemed to want to eat the patch of grass that we stood on! I guess he was just being inquisitive but he made us move along a few times. Personally cattle don't bother me so much but I admit to not enjoying their attendant passengers that annoyingly buzz about your face and can often impart some nasty bites. After moving a couple of times we found a spot that the number 8 bull didn't appear interested in and set about searching for the PGP. It took less than a minute to find a few Lapwing loafing around in a taller patch of vegetation and a couple of minutes more to find the Pacific Golden Plover. It's very self-satisfying to pick out a target bird, and especially a lifer, myself and not to have to rely on somebody else to find it.

Pacific Golden Plover (centre)

The birds weren't close so it was another case, as with the Albatross the week before, of securing a life bird without much of the wow factor but we were happy nonetheless. And for fifteen minutes we had the bird to ourselves, the benefit of making an early start. A whole gaggle of birders and toggers were headed our way though so when they arrived and, after being asked, I had directed a few of them to where the bird was, we moved along the seawall a bit to regain our own personal space. I took a few more photos but hurriedly because the herd of young bullocks followed us!

We sat on a bench and watched a family of Avocets feed along the small dyke at the bottom of the bank. There were two juveniles being marshalled by a very protective parent and if any other birds dared to venture too closely then the adult bird would metamorphose into a very angry Avocet. She, I'm assuming it was the mother, would oust Black-headed Gulls from the vicinity even if they were nowhere near her chicks. In a straight fight you would expect the more robust Gull to win hands down against the more flimsy looking Wader and yet it was always the Black-headed Gull that ended up giving way. 

juvenile Avocets

adult Avocet

Black-headed Gull & Avocet wars

A pair of Oystercatchers, an adult and juvenile, were much more difficult opponents for the Avocet and they flatly refused to move away when asked, instead standing their ground and continuing their own feed along the waters edge. If the Oystercatchers approached the Avocets too closely the adult Avocet flew in tidy and decreasing circles around the bulkier birds but ultimately its defence proved futile since the Oystercatchers had that resolve to stand firm.

adult & juvenile Oystercatcher

The Oystercatchers weren't the only obstinate creatures around, the number 8 bullock had decided that the bench belonged to him and not us. We gathered that when we became aware of the sound of grass being tore up right behind us. I tried to move him along but he was having none of it so when a few of his mates joined him, we silently screamed submission and frustratedly left the bench. Cows are big animals and young ones can be quite boisterous so are not worth messing with. Number 8 then proceeded to use the wooden plank as a scratching board! 

We rejoined the throng of birders watching the PGP, a quick check showed that it was still stood in virtually same place, but walked past them to find a spot from where we could still see the bird and have our own space away from other folk, there were a couple of toggers present that we've been unfortunate to encounter on previous twitches and who we'd rather avoid. We would also have a human barrier between us and those pesky cattle, especially number bloody 8! I set the scope up and studied the PGP for a while which after a few minutes did us a huge favour by waking up and walking out on to shorter turf and thus allowing us to fully appreciate its beauty even at the hundred yards distance away that we were. I'm not one for in depth analysis of plumages but obviously you need to know enough about the subject to know that you're looking at the correct species and more importantly to identify something different should you be lucky enough to find something different. The main structural differences that mark a PGP out as different from the European version are longer legs and a slimmer build, neither of which could really be ascertained from the view I had since there was nothing to compare it with. The black underparts extended all the way to underneath the tail but they do so in the American version as well. In summer plumage, as this bird was, the black on the breast and belly is fringed by a wide border of white along the flanks which denotes a Pacific rather than an American (see here for a short blog about the American version seen in 2019) which has no such white edging to the black underparts past the neck area.

Diagnostic in identifying a Pacific Golden Plover against its European cousin species is the underwing colour which is grey-brown as opposed to white in the European birds. Unfortunately the underwings are also grey-brown in the American bird as well but at least when the PGP did a little run and flutter and showed those underwings we were absolutely sure that it wasn't a European Golden Plover but of course we knew that already because we wouldn't have bothered to travel all the way to The Wash to see one of those.

So the real clincher to the identity of the Pacific Golden Plover was to use all of the features and discern the subtle differences between the two rare species and allocate the salient features to the correct one. Very helpfully somebody had already done that, to my knowledge nobody had seen an American Golden Plover at the same time so I was confident that we had ticked the correct species. I am going to study the two at length though, sometime when I remember, if I remember that is.

Happy with our distant view of the Plover we moved on to have a look at the other side of the reserve. We had plans to try for another lifer later in the day so wouldn't want to be at Frampton much past lunchtime. We paused at the top of the bank that overlooked the northern half of the fresh marsh. A scan revealed another unusual bird that we had discovered earlier was present on the reserve, a Ruddy Shelduck. Most of the birding "authorities" disallow counting Ruddy Shelducks because of the strong possibility that they have derived from a reintroduced population in Germany. Apparently a clearly wild wildfowl living wild and free isn't deemed worthy of inclusion on "official" lists. It is however fully suitable for inclusion on my own year list which now stood at 216.

Ruddy Shelduck

While stood up on the bank I scanned the furthest reaches of the marsh. I found a flock of twenty-nine Spoonbills, possibly the largest group that I've ever seen and both Black-tailed and Bar-tailed Godwits, the latter of which was new for the year. A large flock of over hundred Red Knot, also new for the 2021 list, exploded from the marsh and flew out to The Wash. That, "large" flock, would appear inconsequential later on in the day. There were quite a few Dunlin and Ringed Plovers feeding on the scrapes and as I sorted through them, I spotted a Little Stint. At least I thought I did but before I could double-check, the whole flock took to flight and disappeared. Unwilling to add Little Stint to the year list on such a quick view and considering that the morning was waning, we decided to go and check the scrape nearest the car where I had clocked a Wood Sandpiper on our way to view the PGP.  The Wood Sandpiper was still there feeding along the closest muddy edge of the shallow pool. A small bird was following it, it seemed that the Little Stint hadn't gone far at all!

Little Stint & Wood Sandpiper

The Wood Sandpiper and Little Stint shared the patch of water with several other wading birds, most notably a juvenile Little Ringed Plover but also with Ringed Plovers, Redshanks and a few Dunlin. In just a few hours and without walking any further than a few hundred metres we had added five new year ticks and another lifer as well as enjoying many other wonderful birds. Somehow we had contrived to miss a Short-eared Owl and a whole glut of Greenshanks but we'll get those another day so we weren't too bothered by that. We had a much rarer wading bird on our radar on the opposite side of The Wash at another RSPB reserve, Snettisham in Norfolk.

Wood Sandpiper

juvenile Little Ringed Plover

Little Stint

Redshank

The bird we were going to see would only be visible at Snettisham around the time of the high tide which wouldn't be until seven o'clock in the evening so we had a bit of time to kill. By chance a White Stork had been found just a few miles away from Kings Lynn which lay on our route so it'd only take a small detour to see it. Now, White Storks fall into the same confusion category as Ruddy Shelducks because lots of them come from reintroduction schemes so their "wildness" can't be corroborated. This particular White Stork had been seen wearing jewellery on its ankle too so its credibility was reduced further. None of that concerns me though and I would be happy to both see it and to add it to my own personal year list. It would also be only the second White Stork that I've seen in the UK, remarkably I've seen three of the rarer, and always unquestioned, Black Storks, after one in Buckinghamshire over twenty years ago (which was ok to tick since all the fuss about White Storks has been generated more recently). 

We found the right place, a couple of birders stood by the side of a busy road helped with that, and parked up as safely as we could near an equally busy junction. We were close to the village of Ashenwick where much of the surrounding woodland and heathland is a conservation area and out of bounds to the general public. We joined the couple at the fence and immediately saw the White Stork feeding in long grass at the far side of the field. The field contained a herd of horses and in Cattle Egret style the White Stork was following them and taking insects, probably grasshoppers, disturbed from the grass. The way it was feeding reminded me of a Squacco Heron that I saw at Pagham in 2019 which had also gorged itself on insects.

White Stork

The White Stork was very distant across the field but I noticed a track that ran alongside the field edge so we walked along it to get closer. I couldn't understand why the other birders hadn't done the same since the short walk brought us up much closer to the bird. Maybe the track was private, oops! Now we could scope the bird and see every detail including the small metal ring on its left leg. Storks are odd looking birds, gangly and yet bulky bodied with, in the case of this White Stork, a bill that a carrot nosed Snowman would be proud of. We didn't see the bird fly but if we had then the long slender black wings would have been evident. Whether or not the purists accept such birds, the White Stork, clearly living wild and free, was the 220th species added to my year list.

We arrived at Snettisham a full three hours before the high tide mark. The walk from the carpark to the beach, I say beach but in effect it is the "mud", took us twenty minutes or so. There were already quite a few other birders assembled ready for the main event that would hopefully take place a little later. I spoke to a chap and asked him why so many folk were stood just by the end of the beach huts bearing in mind that the sighting of the rare wader had been further along the track towards the hides. He told me that the consensus was that the mud there would be the first area to be covered by water when the tide came in so that feeding birds would be pushed up in front of the huts. A reasonable explanation and reason enough to linger in that area but I have always adhered to the school of thought which considers that the last place a bird was seen is the first place to look so it would be half a mile south by the old jetty for us. As we walked we passed a fine male Linnet.

Linnet

A few hundred metres along the track a familiar bird flew past my right shoulder, the white outer tail feathers were striking enough for me to exclaim, "Turtle Dove!" We've missed Turtle Doves on our local Otmoor reserve this year, with sadly none reported in what was always a reliable area for them, so to see one here was a real treat. We had seen one earlier in the year at Frampton Marsh and it does appear that they may be retracting their range eastwards. As most people will know, Turtle Doves are a species that are facing huge problems on their wintering grounds as well as having to face the hunters guns on their migration routes, all of which is having a devastating effect on the numbers returning to the UK each year. Anyway, the Purrtle Dove (as I sometimes coin them for obvious reasons) very dutifully landed in a small bush about fifty metres away. By careful and slow stalking I managed to get within range and take some pleasing shots of what must be our most beautiful Dove species. Let's hope that they continue to make it to the UK for our summers which would be far poorer without them.

Turtle Dove

We reached the shore hide and took a seat outside and looked out at the huge expanse of mud. When the tide is out the edge of the sea is roughly about five miles away but The Wash is extremely shallow so when the tide turns, it rushes in an impressive rate of knots (excuse that totally intended pun, more to be revealed below). We could see swirling masses of birds way out on the horizon but it would be a while yet before they would be forced in by the tide. 

In the meantime we watched some of the birds that were loafing out on the mud. Waders were represented by Redshanks and Oystercatchers, Terns by Common, Sandwich and a couple of the Little variety. Most birds were too far out to be worth photographing but I found a nice Mediterranean Gull to capture and to use up a bit of time.

Mediterranean Gull

The first flocks of birds began flying into the gravel pit behind the beach at about five-thirty. Mostly they were represented by just two species, loose groups of Black-tailed Godwits and much denser and faster flying flocks of Red Knots. The Godwits always flew in relatively high before whiffling down onto the islands in the gravel pit, whereas the Knots barely cleared our heads as they passed with a great whoosh of wingbeats. Later flocks of Dunlin came rushing in as well as groups of Oystercatchers and Redshanks. Snettisham provides an unrivalled spectacle, akin to watching a Starling murmuration but much longer lasting, and it isn't geared up to the evenings just before dusk but instead to the state of the tides so it can be enjoyed at much more civilised times of day.

Red Knot (& Black-tailed Godwit, top photo)

By six o'clock the islands in the pit were completely covered by birds so I took a few minutes inside the shore hide and took some record shots of the birds. A still frame doesn't do justice to the experience of seeing thousands of wading birds perpetually jostling for position on the only dry land available. It really does need to be seen at first hand to appreciate the extravaganza that the birds provide.

We could see the masses of Waders, resembling giant swarms of insects, at the edge of the water getting much closer as the evening wore on. The creeks were filling up with water and birds were beginning to be pushed up out of them and onto the mud expanses. Lots of like-minded folk were streaming onto the reserve too and the excitement amongst the birders and twitchers was ramping up little by little until a fever pitch was reached when the water suddenly started to appear over the mud. Another Mediterranean Gull flew past calling loudly as if to say, "Get ready, the birds are coming".

We had come to see a bird that had first been found on Thursday and had been seen again on the Friday. The Western Sandpiper, a diminutive Peep (as Americans call them) species from North America, is very rarely seen in the UK with just a handful of previous records. It had been observed during the high tide period over the past two days and was still present in the morning. I chose to go to Frampton for the Pacific Golden Plover first rather than the Western Sandpiper because I didn't think that we'd make Snettisham in time for the mornings high tide which was a little after eight o'clock.  It then transpired the Western Sandpiper showed best after the high water mark and gave excellent views almost up to midday. As I stood waiting for the onrush of birds to be pushed up the mudflats by the incoming tide, I had a very awful feeling that I'd come to rue that decision and how I wished that I'd evaluated the situation better and turned my itinerary around. If I had done then the rare wader would already be in the bag.

The sea was filling the creeks as fast as the water was flooding over the mudflats, soon there was only a narrow exspanse of mud on either side of the closest creek near to the old jetty. Hundreds of Dunlin just appeared as if from nowhere and began frantically feeding at the edge of the water. It was a race against time for the small wading birds and more and more arrived to join in on the feast of stranded flies, insects and worms washed up by the tide. I looked to the north and saw the twitchers that had assembled at that end of the beach all walking, some running in fact, towards us. The beach by the huts had already been completely covered by the sea. Then somebody shouted, "I've got it!" and "It's running left behind the Dunlin". Panic stations!

Further instructions were bellowed out as others got on the bird, "It's the furthest wader out, behind the Dunlin", "In line with the green bit" and so on. Directions to a bird are great if you understand them or are in a position to line up or recognise the landmarks when given but, of course, we all stand in slightly different places so our lines of sight are all different. If I thought it was tough trying to get on the Albatross last week in the huge throng of Gannets, this game of trying to pinpoint a four inch long mud crawler in a congregation of a thousand other, albeit slightly bigger five inch mud crawlers, was bloody difficult. Really, really, bloody hard! 

I tried my hardest to calm myself, not wanting to make the same mistakes as I did with the Albatross. I scanned the ever moving flocks of Dunlin looking for the Westie, a task made a tad more difficult again by there being several Sanderling running full pelt amongst them as well. And then, eureka, I had it, running quickly at the back of the flock just like the man had said, a tiny little, nondescript at the distance, bird. I quickly got Mrs Caley behind the scope so that she could see it as well which she did and I breathed a sigh of relief at that. I took a hurried record shot for posterity which I've annotated to help you see it!

The Western Sandpiper, once you'd got your eye in, was actually not so hard to pick out even when it was scuttling along quickly. It had a curious feeding action of stooping forward on crouched legs when feeding, unlike the Dunlin which all fed with a straight legged action. I managed to take a few more record shots, better ones that actually prove that I saw the bird. Sometimes the experience far outweighs the photos that you mange to take!

As the birds moved ever southwards along the mud, racing ahead of the mini-tsunami that was devouring the available dry land, the mass of a hundred and more twitchers moved with them. We were constantly shifting position trying to keep up with the bird which became more difficult as the mud disappeared because the birds were even more concentrated. A Little Stint also added to the confusion. Dan and Tricia, friends of ours from Oxfordshire hailed us as we ran, well I ran, Mrs Caley calmly walked and caught me upon whenever I stopped. We had more fleeting views but it was much harder than at first to stay on the bird. I resorted to taking random photos of the birds in the hope of securing some more lucky shots of the Western Sandpiper, I wasn't very successful at that, although I did get a snap of both the Westie and the Little Stint in the same frame, although you'll probably need to take my word for that.

With no mud left the whole flock of birds moved further away and that was that. It had been a frantic way to end a very enjoyable day. I'm not usually a big fan of a mad twitch, and this was one helluva mad twitch, but this had been fun. The excitement amongst the birders was palpable, sizzling almost. Birders are usually so laid back, I like to think I am too, but in a situation like this everybody reached that fever pitch. Most people saw the bird, a few didn't and I shared their disappointment. I recall being at a twitch in Cornwall for a Scarlet Tanager which showed while we were there but we didn't see it despite being in the right place at the right time. That was gutting at the time, still is now, and we've not had a chance of redemption since.

"It's in that lot somewhere!"

Four life ticks in eight days was heady birding indeed. I wonder what will be the next bird to get us all twitchy again. I can't wait.