Dreaming of a White-rumped Christmas

An unusually leisurely start at Pulborough this morning after a rather late night saw me heading first to West Mead hide where the highlight was a Peregrine and a Marsh Harrier dogfighting distantly and at some height over the Arun, causing much alarm among the hordes of Lapwings and wildfowl which were swirling around over the Mid Brooks. After a good scan here the brisk south-westerly was beginning to turn my hands numb and make me wish I'd remembered a scarf, so I headed off to Winpenny which I thought would offer a bit more shelter (it didn't). As I approached I could see the Lapwings were all still airborne with a Redshank calling among them - not a bird I've seen here much since the breeding birds left in late summer.

Marsh Harrier, photo by Ed Stubbs

The main pool in front of the hide was the fullest I'd seen it since the spring, with just a few grassy spits and islands still visible in the water, the main one of which was decorated with a good covering of Lapwings. It didn't take me long to pick out two smaller waders among them, one of which was clearly a winter plumage Dunlin. The other bird held my attention for longer. Another birder came in and delivered the usual 'much about?' to which I directed his attention to the two Calidrids. He wasn't convinced either was anything other than a Dunlin and left soon after. I began to doubt myself. I briefly redirected my attention to a preening Peregrine and a Kingfisher which gave a nice flypast in front of the hide. But still I kept going back to this wader. It was only a fraction smaller than the obvious Dunlin but something about the proportions was all wrong. The bird appeared slighter and rather more 'squashed' in its build, with a shorter bill and a clear supercilium, but most striking of all was its long, pointed rear end caused by the primaries extending beyond the tail, giving an overall more Stint-like shape to the bird.

White-rumped Sandpiper

I was by now in no doubt that this was no Dunlin but couldn't immediately place what I was dealing with. The general shape put me in mind of the Baird's Sandpiper I'd seen at Cuckmere Haven last year but I didn't remember that bird having such a strong supercilium. This bird also had dark streaks extending down its breast as far as the flanks, also unlike Baird's. Then I remembered the White-rumped Sandpiper I'd seen at Lodmoor five years ago and it dawned on me this could be what I was looking at!

I sent out some pics to a few people and put them on Twitter and soon the replies started coming back thick and fast... "A bit W R Sandy shaped", "could be a White-rumped Sand?", "have you seen the rump?". Others such as Martin Gray and Josh and Ed from BirdGuides were more confident based largely on an ID feature I had overlooked but which was clearly visible in even my relatively poor phonescoped shots: the pale base to the lower mandible. Suddenly everything went a bit mad. The news was out. My phone went into hyperdrive. People were on their way down. It's the kind of moment that every patch watcher dreams of! I tried to maintain my cool and was determined to get a clinching look at that rump whilst also juggling various text, Twitter and WhatsApp conversations as well as phoning in the news to the visitor centre.

 

At some point while all this was going on I briefly lost sight of the bird and was faced with the distressing prospect of being the only observer and having to explain to everyone that arrived that they 'should have been here five minutes ago'. Luckily, a few minutes later it returned (although it seemed like far longer) and as it cruised back down onto one of the grassy spits the sunlight caught the white uppertail coverts beautifully. Yes! It really was a White-rumped Sand!

A coach party from Eastbourne RSPB group arrived at this point, who looked rather incredulous when I excitedly pointed them in the bird's direction. It was a lifer for many of them and I was more than happy to let those without scopes have a look through my own. After a while the group headed off, all very grateful for the unexpected highlight of their day. Then the hide seemed very empty for what seemed like an eternity until Dave Buckingham called and said "Matt, I'm at West Mead. Where are you?". My blood ran cold - I'd been so buzzing at the realisation of what I'd found that I'd got the hide names muddled up! "Winpenny! It's at Winpenny!" I exclaimed, and soon enough there came the sound of approaching footsteps and the hide again filled up very quickly. The bird went AWOL for a time when it flew up with all the Lapwings but thankfully came back a little later, albeit rather more distantly, and all who came in the next few hours connected. With the horizontal drizzle hampering visibility and blowing in through the hide windows I said my goodbyes to the bird and birders around 13:45 but it was apparently still showing well up until nearly 15:00 at least.

Evidently only the thirteenth Sussex record - only two of which were in this century - and my 149th species at Pulborough this year, it's fair to say that if there is to be a 150th bird on my 2018 patch list it will have to go some to top the excitement of today! Either way, hopefully the WR Sand sticks around for many other birders to see and hopefully get some better photos of.

White-rumped Sandpiper and Dunlin together, photo by Ed Stubbs