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A Long but worthwhile driving Stint to Yorkshire

Record shot of Long-toed Stint



Ok not my best attempt at title humour I agree but its getting late and I'm tired!

 


The regular reader will know by now how this story goes. All is quiet  and peaceful in the Hutchins household early on Saturday morning. Breakfast has been taken. The first, and always the best, cup of tea of the day has been drunk and I’m just about to have a shower when a message arrives from my birding mate Nick, “are you on your way”. This clearly means that I had missed some major birding news somehow. The few early morning reports on RBA shine no light on the issue and so I message Nick back. The previous evening a Temminck’s Stint located at St. Aidens RSPB in Yorkshire had been reidentified from photographs as a mega rare Long-toed Stint. Now this bird, with just 3 records on the BOU list prior to 2019 was truly as rare as rocking horse s**t!. The last bird stayed 2 days in county cork in the Republic of Ireland in 1996. The last UK record was some 30 years ago in Cleveland in 1982 meaning that a whole generation of twitchers would have never seen this bird in the UK – this was going to be a big twitch if it was still present this morning.

 

The first report on RBA was not very encouraging ..”No sign of…” so I helped sort out our horses and walked the dogs with Carolyn. Thankfully, the bird was soon relocated and after a quick coffee and packing the car with my kit I set off towards St. Aidens RSPB some 150 miles of mainly motorway driving North. The journey was, in truth, a bit of a slog around the M42 and onwards to the M1. I don’t think it is possible to drive 150 miles on UK motorways without at least 2 sets of major road works and associated hold-ups.

 

I arrived on site just before 13:00 and messaged Nick to learn that he was walking back from the bird with Anne. I’ve never been to St. Aidens RSPB before so asked for directions to the bird at the visitors centre. In truth I probably didn’t need to bother as an ant like line of birders hurrying to the Stint stretched off along a path and into the distance. In the return lane contented birders were progressing at an altogether more leisurely and contented pace back to their cars. I met Nick and Anne on the path and quickly exchanged greetings before hurrying off to see the bird. After walking 30 minutes or so the location was pretty obvious as there were some 100 birders stretched out in a line looking at a small muddy island in a lake. The Stint was busy feeding on the shoreline moving in and out of and sometimes disappearing behind, Coots, Lapwings and Mallards.

 

The Long-toed Stint breeds in Siberia, winters in south and southeast Asia and Australia and is a very rare vagrant to Europe. It is a very small wader with a small head and short, sharp-tipped beak. The breast is speckled with pale brown and the underparts are white. The legs and feet are yellow and the beak dark brown, apart from the base of the lower mandible which is diagnostically yellow or pale brown. You probably will not have guessed so let me tell you that it has  rather extraordinarily long toes, especially the middle one!

 



I managed to get a location in a prime spot on a mound, took some record shots and then set about watching the bird through my scope. The little island was somewhat distant and the light was very dull but I had pretty good views through the scope. It was hyperactively feeding almost Sanderling like in and out of the other birds on the short shoreline. I tried to pick up its diagnostic features but in truth this was very hard. As I watched I heard the quote of the day from somewhere behind me … “shame it’s so small!” After a couple of very enjoyable hours I made my way back to the car in the slow lane very contented with my Saturday surprise.

 

 

 Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!     

Comments

  1. Paul FosterOctober 10, 2021 at 12:18 AM

    Excellent report of your day at St Aidens.I was lucky to be there myself for a few hrs too!!!

    ReplyDelete

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