Saturday 26th October - Semi-wet birding

The weather prospects for the weekend looked fairly shabby, but with a free Saturday it was nice surprise when Gary agreed that trying for the Semi-Palmated Plover, which had turned up on Hayling Island last weekend, was probably the only limited option that seemed worthwhile. The bird had been ranging around Chichester Harbour but was most consistently seen, on the Hampshire side of the harbour, just before high tide in the wader roost at Black Point on the South Eastern tip of the island. High tide was not until 5pm.

We headed out from my place around 8am, first calling at Ambersham Common, where the Shrike I'd seen the previous week had a single report of a re-appearance since. However it was extremely windy with squally rain and not ideal for any passerines and less so for a Shrike. We heard flyover Crossbill, saw several Redwing and Fieldfare a small Siskin flock and heard a Bullfinch but no Shrike. It wasn't a complete disaster as  the other side of the common did hold 2 or 3 Dartford Warblers, Stonechat, Chiffchaff and Goldcrest,

We went towards the coast and called in at Fishbourne Creek, the tide was pretty much out and the wind and rain had picked up with at times horizontal rods of rain making looking through optics impossible, but we still managed a few birds with Greenshank(5), Rock Pipit (1), Stonechat (1) amongst the Brent Geese, Curlew, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit and Grey Plover.

We carried on to Hayling Island and stopped at the Oyster beds, consumed a sandwich in the car then  hid behind a bush to keep out of the wind to see very little - Little Grebe, more Brent Geese, Dunlin and Ringed Plover and some mad windsurfers waiting for the high tide and scaring the birds off.

Around 2pm we headed to the South of the island, parked near the lifeboat station and walked to the spit where a gathering of 60+ birders were waiting. There had been no sign of the bird yet, but high tide was still a couple of hours away, with just 5 Sanderling on the spit. A distant Common Tern then a Sandwich Tern was seen in the harbour and gradually groups of waders started to appear with small numbers of Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Sanderling and a couple of Grey Plover. Viewing was still difficult, at times impossible, being very wet and windy, but every so often there would be a small respite. By 4pm there must have been 1000 waders gathered, intermittently taking flight and returning as the tide rose, and thankfully moving closer to where we were standing. Around 4.15pm, the murmur of the bird being seen spread through the gathering birders, and quite quickly we were on to the Semi-Palmated Plover, which coincided with a relatively calm bit of weather. An American bird with only 5 confirmed records in the UK, the similarities to Ringed Plover possibly resulting in it being under-recorded. Luckily this bird was close enough that through the scope you could pick out  it was considerably smaller than the Ringed Plovers, a shorter bill with a white gap patch at the base of the bill, and although we didn't hear it call nor managed to see its' palmations, we were satisfied enough with the features shown confirmed the bird as true.

After decent looks and approaching 5pm with the weather closing in again, we headed back and even though my camera stayed in the car throughout, it did feel as if we'd defeated the weather.