An American Buff-bellied Pipit in Devon

I haven’t set any particularly aims or targets for my birding this year. The folly of this became evident  when I was debating what to do with my planned day out birding on Tuesday. I was torn between twitching a rare American Buff-bellied Pipit in Devon or spending a day at Slimbridge where a Glossy Ibis had been showing exceptional well. I have previous history with this Pipit, having dipped it before, and have never managed a half decent photo of a Glossy Ibis. I went to bed on Monday night undecided on what to do, woke up late on Tuesday morning and hatched a plan to twitch the Pipit and then try and get the Ibis on the way home. Given that I did not fall out of bed until 06:30 and the very limited daylight, this plan, of course, did not have a  cats chance in hell of succeeding!

There are two subspecies of Buff-bellied Pipit. Subspecies rubescens breeds in North America and Greenland and is recorded as a very rare vagrant to Western Europe. Subspecies japonicus  breeds in Eastern Asia and has never been recorded in Western Europe. The rubescens subspecies is called the American Pipit in North America and has lightly streaked grey-brown upperparts and is diffusely streaked below on the buff breast and flanks. The belly is whitish and the legs are dark. It is migratory and winters on the Pacific coast of North America and on the Atlantic  coast from southern North America through to Central America.  There are 48 UK records on the BBRC database to the end of 2019.

 

The Pipit was located at a place called Horsley Cove near the small village of East Prawle some 170 miles of mainly motorway driving from home. I finally left home at 07:30 with an ETA around 10:45. I followed the motorway and then dual carriageway for the first 130 miles past Exeter without issue. The rest of the way was mainly one lane roads with passing places made all the more slower by a farmer in a tractor cutting his hedge. I had to reverse back some 100 m while the farmer slowly made his way towards me then finally passed me never once acknowledging my existence – your very welcome! I parked at the small village green at East Prawle, spotted some returning birders, enquired about the Pipit, and was informed that it was still present. Armed with more detail instructions from the birders as to the route and with the map reference on my OS locate ap, I set off down a small country lane and over a stone style leading to a steep decline over a field. The coast in front of me was clearly a very substantial drop down from the village but the paths were in most part pretty firm underfoot and when  I arrived on the beach 4 other birders were already present.

 

      

The view across the hill to the beach

As I walked onto the beach the issue with finding the Pipit was immediately obvious, a very mobile flock of some fifty or so Rock Pipits were feeding on swarms of small flies on the rotting seaweed. In general,  the various species of Pipits are small steaked brown passerines quite often with only subtle differences differentiating them. The issue of identification is further complicated by significant variation in plumage appearance even amongst birds of the same species. I had read up on the defining features of a winter plumage Buff-bellied Pipit beforehand and had also studied images of this particular bird on twitter before my trip. Now, I think I’ve said before, looking at defining characteristics  in book photographs is one thing, identify the bird in the field in varying light, especially when mixed with similar highly mobile birds, is an entirely different matter! The flock of Pipits was so mobile that the only real option was to identify a candidate, take a picture of it and study the fine details. An hour or so in and after a number of false alarms I was starting to get quite despondent when a much paler bird landed in front of us in the seed weed and stayed in one place long enough for us to tie it down. Here at last was our misplaced American citizen! At one point it hopped onto a sea weed stem and for a glorious minute or so, stood still and looked at us before flying off towards the sea.

 

With the Pipit well and truly ticked, I set off on the lung bursting climb back up to the village with the warm smug feeling of a successful twitch. 

 

It was now approaching 13:00 and much too late to try for the Slimbridge Glossy Ibis. So I opted to go to the nearby Slapton Ley where two female Lesser Scaups were being reported amongst the Tufted Ducks. The Ley is a large freshwater lake separated by a tiny strip of land from the sea. Despite scanning the Tufted duck flocks, I could not see the Scaups and so set off for home via our favourite fish and chip shop to pick up a yummy dinner for Carolyn and myself to celebrate a very successful first twitch of the year.

 

Adult drake Lesser Scaup on Blashford Lakes a few years ago

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