Sunday 26th July 2020: Cuckmere Haven

On a beautiful sunny but breezy afternoon we travelled to the Cuckmere meanders in search of migrating waders which had been reported earlier. The place was heaving with visitors and we rated our chances as low, but in the channel beside the main river we struck lucky with our target birds, despite the high pedestrian traffic.

Firstly we located a juvenile Wood Sandpiper, poised at the corner of a small creek and bobbing its tail up and down in the characteristic manner of many sandpiper species. It scurried along the edge feeding actively, showing its long yellow-green legs and brown mottled back, together with prominent supercilium extremely well. We have seen this bird several times now and have become confident in identifying it. Tim managed some decent photos too:

Wood Sandpiper

We continued along the track to a small lagoon sheltered from the beach. Here a distant Little Ringed Plover only revealed its identity in flight, when it flashed plain wings, lacking the white wing bars of the Ringed Plover. A Turnstone, several Oystercatchers and Dunlin, sporting black summer bellies, were also resting around the lagoon and a Mediterranean Gull was with the Black-headed gulls at the water’s edge.

As we retraced out steps towards the car park, I caught sight of a tiny wader behind a small muddy platform in the channel. We put up the scopes and were delighted to find this was the elusive Little Stint, reported that morning but not seen by other birders on site. We spread the news and were joined by several others birders. The bird was pretty confiding and identified by the experts around as an adult Little Stint, due to its “warm colouration”. This is fairly uncommon as birds seen at this time of year are more commonly juveniles. It is one of the smallest waders with a short dark bill and fast feeding action. 

Little Stint

On the river, a family of Shelduck were swimming and several Little Egret were active at the muddy margins. Overall, a very rewarding afternoon trip.