Hudwit Musings

In my very early birding days I was on holiday in Devon when I drove past a group of people looking at something through telescopes. As it wasn't convenient to stop, and I knew nothing of twitching then, I drove on. However, I have always wondered if they were looking at the Countess Wear Hudsonian Godwit. That bird was seen at Blacktoft for a month in 1981 from 10th September, disappeared and turned up in Devon from 22nd November to 14th January 1982. It then re-appeared at Blacktoft from 26th April to 6th May 1982. Joining Cream Coloured Courser and Long-toed Stint on my "wish I'd started twitching sooner" list, there was another record in Aberdeenshire in 1988, but that was only seen by a couple of people, I believe. It had become a "blocker" by then, and in terms of my UK list I put it to the back of my mind.

In 1990 I went on a private trip to Chile, my room-mate was a wader enthusiast, and I remember driving some considerable distance to an estuary where we saw wintering Hudsonian Godwits, albeit somewhat distantly. A second tour participant was a vicar, and I remember him being quite taken by the name god-wit. In fact the name first appeared in Middle English and comes from "Good Wight (creature)", probably because they were a game bird at that time. In later years I saw birds in Argentina and also New Zealand, but not in the UK. It seems they are quite prone to vagrancy to New Zealand, and some have become returning birds each year. Why so rare in the UK? The species remained mythical in the UK until 2012, when one was reported not far from the latest sighting. It turned out to be a Black-tailed Godwit, and this is one of the reasons I believe for its perceived lack of sightings. If you don't see the dark underwing and there is little of the breeding plumage, it can be almost impossible to identify, especially in a large flock. That's not to say there are lots going undetected, but every time I visit Frampton there are a lot of Godwits, sometimes thousands, and I don't always look through them all, although I do always look at flocks in flight praying for dark underwing coverts. I once photographed a leucistic Godwit there, but have only ever seen it once despite many visits. 

 So the moral of this is that the bird seen recently at Burton Mere on one day is almost certainly still in the UK somewhere, and judging by the photos it wouldn't be too difficult to pick out. I looked at Frampton yesterday, it didn't help that most birds were roosting so heads and bills weren't on show but I'm pretty sure it wasn't there, my guess would be somewhere like Slimbridge. I realise it's a needle in a haystack but......

Of course, blocker status finally disappeared with the Meare Heath bird in 2015. A female, it was good enough to turn up on a Friday, but news first went out about 8am on Saturday, enabling everyone that wanted and was able to twitch it to do so, we thought. It flew off that evening but appeared to land so people were still quite hopeful that it would be seen on the Sunday. There is another moral here-if you really want to see something-go! THEN, not the next day or whenever you have the time, but immediately the message comes through. Driving overnight to be on site at dawn is less popular than it was for obvious reasons (mainly the punitive taxes on car driving), but at least it has the advantage of the drive being easier in most cases. In the case of this Godwit, sadly it would have been the wrong decision, I feel for those who couldn't get there on Saturday, for Sunday morning saw a distinct lack of Hudsonian Godwits. I was working on the Saturday, but trying to wean myself off twitching so I wasn't too bothered, (or so I told myself).  

Come Wednesday and the bird re-appeared, and again flew off in the evening. Someone was bored enough on Thursday morning to count 174 Black-tailed Godwits, but no Hudwit again. By 9.30 it had re-appeared and a similar  pattern was repeated until the following Sunday, when it remained on the scrape till dusk. However, that second weekend had allowed everyone that wished to catch up with it-the blocker was well and truly unblocked! I don't remember when I went, I drove alone overnight as most of my friends had already seen it, but remember quite clearly my first British Hudsonian Godwit, especially as I've not seen one anywhere since.

 Another bird turned up in Ireland in July for one day (again!) and then disappeared until mid September when it was present for three days. Probably not the Somerset bird, but the July and September sightings were thought to be the same, so where had it spent August? Things then went quiet on the Hudwit front until a juvenile was photographed in Fife on 3rd November 2020. By the 9th it had been correctly identified, news went out and it remained until 17th December. So any thoughts of blocker status returning were gone, but........it was in the middle of Covid restrictions! All but essential travel in or out of Fife was banned, I wonder how the term "essential" would have been viewed in a court of law? In truth most people had far more important things on their mind at that sad time, but the next record had all the makings of a major twitch. First seen on 30th July 2023, the bird was a male, still in reasonably good plumage and seemingly faithful to one area for nearly a month...........on Shetland! Obviously a lot of people made the journey, I decided to wait until my annual pilgrimage in September in the hope it would be another long-stayer, but there must still be a lot of birders, particularly newer devotees to the sport(?) who have never seen a Hudsonian Godwit.

Questions remain, was the recent one-day bird the returning bird from last year at a different location? And the obvious one-where is it now? It will still be on this side of the Atlantic, so let's all keep looking!

STOP PRESS! It's just returned to Burton Mere whilst I'm sorting photos. If it settles down I may go for it, but tonight I'm putting the moth trap out (three Oleander Hawkmoths over the last couple of days from Northern Scotland to Warwickshire -you never know!