Short-billed Dowitcher – Rosehearty, Aberdeenshire, 14th September 1999
Something a bit different, as it's all about the tertials!!!!
Having spent the early part of the autumn working on a low-key basis, hoping that having time on my hands at this time of year would pay off, what with my new found enthusiasm for birding since the Royal Tern, it did, in a big way.
I was, though, beginning to worry about where my next work might be coming from and so after a day of printing off curricula vitae and letters, and other such administration, I went into South Queensferry to go to the post office at around about 16:00. Whilst in the queue, the mega-alert went off to alert me to the presence of a reported Short-billed Dowitcher at Rosehearty, in Aberdeenshire. I think it was described as a possible at first; certainly, there was an element of doubt, and so there was no really a sudden buzz of anticipation. However, once I had completed my chores in Scotmid, and travelled home I decided that I really had to go for it. This decision was made easier by the quickly changing emphasis of the messages, as what was possible very quickly became definite. Once home, I spent just less than an hour negotiating with Gillian, packing and ‘phoning other birders including Graham Clark, Calum Scott, Ken Shaw, Alistair Henderson, and Stuart Rivers re car-sharing. As I had to be back at 17:00 the following evening to look after Ellen, I was keen to go that night whereas most others I spoke to were more inclined to bide their time.
After doing this I was off at 17:00 for what was a fairly leisurely drive north, with a pit-stop at Dundee. However, the further I got the faster I went as it became more and more obvious that I could make it before dark, and seeing the bird that night would be a particularly good move, especially if it then disappeared. So, I drove faster beyond Aberdeen as it was still twilight and there was a lingering chance of seeing it – even seeing in the gloaming would be better than not seeing it at all. Speedily, skilfully and safely I thrashed on, taking back lanes to Rosehearty. Once there I had to work out where the bird might be and unfortunately, I drove east along the coast road to the next village, Sandhaven, without seeing any other birders or their cars. I returned to Rosehearty and abandoned the car in the forecourt of a garage, and ran down onto the beach, where some locals were walking their dogs on the beach. I asked them if they had seen any other birders and they told me that they had, further along, and that they had been parked alongside the road. I was obviously just too late, it was now very poor light but I went through the motions of going along the beach to the said point to no avail, conscious that it was out there somewhere, and that waders were being flushed as I walked along the beach. Was it with them?
I returned to the car and walked into the square looking for somewhere to stay for the night. Within 50 m of the abandoned car was the Bay Hotel, which, it appeared, did rooms. So, I went into the bar and was then shown up stairs to a perfectly adequate, if a little desolate, room. I reported in and then wandered back across the square to the chip-shop around the corner, which proved to be very entertaining – the youth of today! I had a good chat with the chip-shop owners about the bird and birding, and this proved to be the theme of the rest of the evening as, after eating my chips, I returned to the bar. Here the regulars were watching, ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’, and after we had watched this, I continued to chat about the reason for me being in Rosehearty. They were genuinely interested in the Short-billed Dowitcher and so it was four pints later before I went up to my room to do my revision! I hastily scribbled some notes from Lewington, Alstrom and Colston on some of the chip wrappings I had carefully saved and then went to bed.
Whether it was the beer or the anticipation I didn’t sleep at all well. I was aware that it was a still, starlit night as I got up several times in the night to see whether it was getting light. I finally gave up at 05:00 and got up, showered, dressed and packed. I was ready to go when I got the pre-arranged knock on the door at 06:00 and quickly rushed downstairs for a full cooked breakfast. It was now light, so I gobbled this down and then checked out with almost indecent haste, before going out to the car and loading up my gear. I walked along the road out of Rosehearty and was somewhat surprised to see some 200 – 300 birders already assembled, an army that had arrived silently during the night. It seemed that I was the only one who had parked in the village, and probably I was the only one who had travelled some way and not slept in the car. However, I didn’t feel much better than some of them looked, despite my somewhat better accommodation arrangements!
Anyway, I joined the gallery on the crest of the fringe of sand-dunes overlooking the sandy and then rocky shore and set up my ‘scope. I wanted to find the bird without having to get directions which I did with ease as it searched for food amongst the pools and seaweed covered rocks about 50 m away from the dunes. It remained on show at similar ranges throughout my stay, although it ranged backwards and forwards along the beach and was flushed a couple of times by walkers and dog-walkers.
As such, the views were good, particularly once the sun was up as it was another bright, still day. As the sunlight improved it allowed gradually improving views of some of the pertinent features of this birds’ identity.
As the bird ranged along the beach so did the gallery, becoming a ‘rolling twitch’ as people moved from one position to the next trying to get better views. Once satisfactory views had been obtained birders began to concentrate on their socialisings and began to drift off for the long journey home. A few others continued to arrive.
I too adopted this approach, ticking off in particular Bernie Beck, Chris McGuigan, Stuart Rivers and many of the usual suspects including, some who looked somewhat happier than when I last saw them the day after the day before at the Royal Tern.
Anyway, back to the bird.
Having ‘prepared’, the previous night I was partially clued up in terms of knowing what I was looking for. The bird was an obvious dowitcher, being about Redshank size, with a strong looking long bill, which was straight, broad-based and blob-tipped, and medium-long legs. The plumage was superficially similar to that of the bird Gillian and I had seen at Leighton Moss two autumns earlier, with dark brown spangled upperparts and light buff-brown underparts and a striking capped appearance emphasised by the pale face and supercilium.
However, gradually as the views improved it was able to get more familiar with the detailed intricacies of the plumage of a juvenile Short-billed Dowitcher. The coverts, scapulars and tertials were all basically brown centred and buff-orange fringed, denoting a juvenile bird, but more significantly the bird was beginning to moult into winter plumage, as evidenced by the first grey scapulars coming though and also several missing tertials on the birds’ right hand side. This feature was very handy indeed as it revealed two things.
One, it exposed the entire underlying tertial to scrutiny, and it could be seen to be an intricately patterned feather with a dark brown centre and orangey fringe with a jagged edged pattern on the outer web – the tiger striped tertials. Never before have I drawn just one feather rather than the entire bird in my notebook! Two, it also exposed the tail / rump pattern, which admittedly, I was not aware was diagnostic at the time but which I do remember to be a finely barred pattern of dark brown lines on an off-white base, more or less equally spaced and extending both up the rump and onto the undertail coverts.
Otherwise, the bird was very similar to the Leighton Moss Long-billed Dowitcher, although the cap and supercilium appeared more distinct, with an irregular line to the cap above the eye and the upper breast, etc.; it might have been more flushed buff-orange.
I saw the bird in flight a couple of times and observed that it had an un-patterned wing apart from the pale trailing edge to the wing, and also it had a pale area extending up the lower back from the rump.
Generally, though, it worked backwards and forwards along the beach rock pools and as such was in some ways reminiscent on the Gray-tailed Tattler further along the coast at Burghead.
I watched the bird for some 2.5 hours before departing and thoroughly enjoyed being on a twitch again. This hobby is not that bad after all!
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