Long-billed Dowitcher at Rainham

I haven't had a sniff of any birding for almost a month so when news came in this morning of a Long-billed Dowitcher being found at Rainham by Dave Smith and being well placed at my sons house in Hornchurch I couldn't help but make the ten minute drive for a chance of connecting with it. I had no binoculars or camera but luckily had the scope in the car so headed over to look for the bird and on arrival two guys were stood by the bench overlooking Purfleet scrape but told me the bird had recently flown off towards Target pools. I didn't really have time to walk round the reserve searching for the bird so decided I'd wait ten minutes and see if by chance it would return to Purfleet and within minutes I picked it up flying towards us with a group of Lapwing. I watched it land on a small island and managed to get the two guys with me on it and then a few more turned up and I was able to help them before rushing off back to my sons to play puppets and dragons etc with the grandchildren for what was a lovely day all round.

Scoping Purfleet scrape for the distant Dowitcher

The Dowitcher is a first ever for Rainham marshes and is also not only a year tick for me but both a London and Essex tick to boot.

Year list now 247

Essex list now 282

London list now 240

The history of Long billed Dowitcher in Essex is limited with just nine previous records and the last being the Tilbury bird of 2011.

As for London well there's just two previous records both at Staines with a bird in 1977 on the reservoir being a first for London followed by another bird on Staines Moor in 1987 so this is only a third for London and as such will attract a little local interest.

The small local twitch

The Dowitcher (on the right)