17th November
Wow, what a day-North Ron scores big-time! A Dowitcher sp was found among feeding Redshanks and Turnstones in the Bewan/Rue area mid-morning and once the sheep started to behave themselves it showed well until lunchtime allowing plenty of photo's to be taken. Originally it was considered to be a Long-billed but limited experience of the two species and nagging doubts prompted several hours of research in the afternoon and after much circulation and correspondence on-line, the current consensus is that the bird is a first-winter SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER-just the fourth British record! All other news is largely irrelevant although a cursory glance at the sea logged 2 Little Auks while the late White Wagtail remains at the surgery.
Comments
My field experience of seeing the two species in the States is rather a while ago but I recall never seeing Short-billed on fresh marsh, always on estuarine, brackish habo.
Against that this bird (1cy, those are retained juv coverts and there is at least one, actually two aren't there, retained tertials?) seems to have primaries extending to the tail tip, a tad beyond to my eye and beyond the tertials. Also the bill does look to be down-turned in the terminal 1/3.
The features are more like Short-billed and I guess that's where I'd put my money, which is a bit of a gamble all in all.
Hope that's helpful.