Wet and windy whimbrel

After the gorgeous weather of the last few days it was a bit of a shock to go out on a more typical Winter day. The trip was down to the South coast, combining a bit of birding with a visit to Wendy and Michael. The traffic was pretty slow so I didn't get there till gone 9. A reviving cup of tea and we were soon off on the road. With a late start and the threat of rain coming after lunch we only had one location in mind - Pagham Harbour. This was really my choice as there has been a whimbrel over wintering at Church Norton which is on the reserve. I have history with whimbrels here. A few years ago I spent almost 12 hours waiting to get a Hudsonian whimbrel, the American version of our bird. A very rare bird and a cracking tick. Unfortunately two years ago the powers-that-be decided it wasn't different enough to be a full species and was "lumped" back in. I lost the tick on my life list! Still, whimbrel would be a year-tick and my list has slowed down in the ast weeks or so with most of the "easy" ticks now in the bag.
The RSPB man in the visitor centre pointed us in the light direction so we parked up by the church and headed down to the harbour. The tide was really low and there was a massive expanse of mud. In the distance you could see curlews, redshanks, avocets, dunlin, ringed plover, grey plover, godwit and even a peregrine falcon. No sign though of the whimbrel though. A couple of well-marked curlews had us going but eventually we retreated into the hide.

This got us away from the rain which had now arrived and we also had the benefit of two locals who confirmed we were in the right place. We watched the rain fall and had lunch but still no sign. Finally though I spotted a "new" bird appearing from the right in the reeds and the mud.

This was the whimbrel. They are closely related to curlew and can often be mistaken for them. There are a few pointers to telling them apart though.

Most notable is the stripe on their head. Although some curlews, as in the one in the first photo, do have an eyestripe, it is never as well defined as a whimbrel and they never have the stripe down the middle of their head. Their beak is shorter than a curlew and the shape is different. The curve on a curlew is more regular whereas on a whimbrel it starts flat then curls sharply down at the end.
It moved out onto the estuary and started to feed on the mud just as we were joined by Lee Evans who had been caught out in the rain twitching the hooded crow!!

With the weather only getting worse we called it a day and headed back. A very enjoyable day with good company and an excellent lunch provided! What more can you want!!