9th July - Normandy Marsh, Hampshire

The weather over the last week has been quite horrible, it is hard to imagine we are mid summer and that this is the month of July.  The one saving grace was a small window last Thursday when Helen and I went to the Hampton Court Flower Show and the sun shone.

I was determined to go out today regardless of what the weather had in store.  On Monday there was a report of a summer plumaged Long-billed Dowitcher at Normandy Marsh, when I got up this morning there was the confirmation the bird was still present and I left the house in overcast but dry conditions.  As I packed up the car one of the local Red Kites came low over the house and close.

A pair are regular, scouring the gardens, dropping low over the rooftops and around the houses.

The notch in the tail of this bird is quite distinctive, no doubt they have young close by.

It took an hour to the parking place just off Oxey Marsh and it was dry and dull as I walked alongside the creek on the way to Normandy Marsh.  Passing Salterns there was a pair of Avocet present, one feeding the other roosting in the middle of the pool.

On the Solent side of the path there were Black-tailed Godwits, Dunlin and Curlew feeding on the exposed mud.  It was good to get back to photographing birds after the recent time spent with the butterflies and orchids.

If the Avocet is an elegant wader, the Curlew is a very stately one.

On the west side of Normandy there were several Black-tailed Godwits feeding in the lagoon, almost all were still in the brick red summer plumage.

Another Avocet at rest from the south side of the sea wall.

The Long-billed Dowitcher had been reported from the pools on the east side of the lagoon, but checking my phone there was a message saying it had been spooked by a Peregrine and couldn't be relocated.  Still I walked on, I doubted it would have gone far.

I could see several birders scanning the pool and as I walked up they pointed out the dowitcher, quite a distance away feeding on the right  alongside a Redshank.

Not what I had hoped for after seeing yesterday's photographs, but there was time and it has been mobile.

Both adult and juvenile Common Terns were flying around the lagoon, I didn't bother to stop and look for the Roseates as I walked by, I am sure they were there, and a Little Tern kept coming back to fish in the water in front of us as we waited for the dowitcher to come closer.

Then I noticed and brownish wader flying around the shallower water, it had a distinctive white patch on its back and I knew immediately it was the dowitcher.  I just managed to catch it in flight as it flew to the marsh and disappeared into a little bay.

So now it was a case of waiting for it to come out, or be flushed by another bird.  In the mean time there was also the adult Little Tern that kept coming back to fish in front of us.

Another distraction came in the guise of a Greenshank that was moulting out of breeding plumage.

The breeding plumage is more on the brownish red colour, the winter colours more monochrome grey and black.

It was a case of trying to get an angle to see into the bay.  There had been Redshanks and several juvenile Black-headed Gulls in there with the dowitcher.  Then I saw it out in the open and it immediately flew to the shallow pool close to the path where it first started to preen before feeding.

The Long-billed Dowitcher is a medium-sized wader that resemble godwits in body and bill shape, and their reddish underparts in summer, but are much shorter legged, more like snipe to which they are also somewhat more closely related.  It recalls Snipe with its method of probing the mud to feed.  Some video to show the feeding method.

The Long-billed Dowitcher is nearly identical in appearance to the Short-billed Dowitcher and was only recognized as a separate species in 1950.  Between the two, the best distinguishing field mark is their flight call, especially in winter where both species are even more difficult to tell apart.  However, the two species differ ecologically in a few ways, starting with habitat and breeding location. Short-billed prefer salt-water and breed primarily in southern Alaska and Yukon, as well as central Canada and the Maritime provinces, while long-billed generally prefer freshwater and breed mainly from western and northern Alaska to eastern Siberia before migrating as far south as Mexico for the winter.

This Long-billed dowitcher is in full breeding plumage, which is retained from approximately May to late August or early September. In breeding plumage, adults are characterized by a dark crown on top of their head and a rufous neck, chest, and belly underneath with black bars on their breast and white barring on flanks when plumage is fresh. The older the feathers get the less the black bars may appear leaving the breast dark reddish. The crown and the back are a mix of brown, black and buff markings.   Wings and upper-back are mottled with black, buff, and white markings looking overall dark brown.

They have a bill that is about twice the length of its head. In all plumages, the long-billed dowitcher has a whitish supercilium and dark loral stripe that continuous past the eye. The tail is barred black and white with the black being almost twice the width of the white and a large distinctive white rump which extends up to the middle of its back, but only seen in flight

The Long-billed Dowitcher is a rare, but annual, visitor to Britain with records peaking in September/October.  In North America, the Long-billed Dowitcher breeds mainly throughout western and northern Alaska, but it also breeds in Siberia, expanding into eastern Russia.

After that very distant start i was showing very well in the pool close to the sea wall.

It moved on to the dry mud and provided an opportunity to compare size and plumage with a redshank.

You get a much better sense of the overall size of the bill in relation to the body.

Again with the Redshank.

I had been watching the weather while the dowitcher was about, a good guide is if you can see the Needles on the isle of Wight.  They had been visible , but now they had disappeared and there was rain in the air.  I decided to head back to the car, feeling that I had enough images of the dowitcher.  As I walked around the marsh I stopped for a comparison with a Black-tailed Godwit.  The plumage is more red and the bill maybe not so long, what can't be appreciated is the size difference, the godwit being much bigger.  More frequently seen together is Redshank and Black-tailed Godwit and as I have shown the dowitcher is a similar size to the Redshank.

I just reached the car as the heavy rain arrived and the journey home was very damp with considerable spray.  Hopefully the dowitcher will stay as I would like th eopportunity to see it in much better light.