I'm sure many patch Birders will think that they have a reasonable idea of what they are likely to see on their patch at a particular time of year and weather conditions. The visit to St Aldhelms this morning started off fairly normally. Light North Easterlies and dry, sunny conditions which are likely to produce some migrants. Had I been out from half-light, then I would have seen more Chiffchaffs piling off the Head than I saw when I arrived about eight: c'est la vie. A couple of Wheatears in the field weren't a surprise given the conditions. There were some Swallows and a few Martins moving East as expected. Linnets were everywhere and I put a conservative total of seven hundred and fifty plus down in the notebook. I bumped into a couple of visiting Birders who were staying in the coastguard cottages. I mentioned to keep an eye out for Merlins as they should be in by now. Three minutes after they drove off, my first Merlin of the Autumn appeared to terrorise the Linnets. I wasn't doing a bad job of predicting what I was likely to see this morning.
Rather than carry on out to the Coastguards and Quarry Ledge, I decided to wander down Pier Bottom Valley. Now I was close to the coast and the Hirundines were, as expected, piling through at around fifty a minute. At the bottom, I decided to have a look at the two small pools of water that were formed behind mud slips. I was keen to see if I could find a way down to them to see what Dragonflies were around the pools. Fresh water is scarce at St Aldhelms and so this is the best location for breeding Dragonflies. I had wanted to check these pools out earlier in the Summer, but there was a female Mallard with her young family on every visit. I decided to leave the pools for the Autumn, as it's the only place the Mallard pair have to breed on the St Aldhelms.
The lower pool: It's narrow and not much more than fifteen metres long with a three to four metre patch of mud at the near end. Getting down to it is very tricky given it's all soft mud that has slipped on multiple occasions
I headed to overlook the lower pool first. I was about eighty metres from the pool and I could see a small brown-backed Bird, with very clean white underparts. It's rare that I can't get a likely name to something I see, but on this occasion, I was struggling. Snow Bunting popped into my head, but that wasn't right. But there again I couldn't come up with anything else better after the first view. I wished I had brought the scope, but then I wouldn't have considered trying to get down to the pools with the scope and tripod.
There was a distant compact brown and white Bird on the lower pool: I couldn't figure it out at first. But there again with only a handful of regular Waders expected at St Aldhelms, a small Wader wasn't the obvious consideration: especially as I couldn't see the bill. Typically, only Oystercatcher, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Common Sandpiper and Snipe can be expected in the year, aside from any seawatching flybys. I suspect Woodcock winter in small numbers, but I'm yet to confirm where they roost during the day
I got a few metres closer and lifted the camera. Zooming the photos through the camera, solved the problem: it looked like a Little Stint. That brought a new thought: what the hell is a Little Stint doing on a three metre patch on mud on a small pool at St Aldhelms. I checked a few more of the first photos and found one where I could see the bill, as well as, the tramlines. No wonder I was initially struggling to put a name to it. I only expect to see two or three species of Waders along the shoreline or in the fields in a typical year. The rest are seen flying over the site or on Spring seawatches. I was pretty sure it was on the patch list. When I checked later, the only record was a single seawatch individual flying East in May 1993. Steve Morrison later confirmed that it was a presumed Little Stint, as he hadn't been able to categorically rule out a Temminck's Stint. However, given the scarcity of Temminck's Stints in Dorset, it was almost certainly a Little Stint.
Little Stint: With only one previous record and rarely seeing more than a handful of Wader species on the ground in a year, it wasn't unreasonable to overlook a small Wader as a possibility
Little Stint: Another photo from the lower pool
I grabbed some more ropy photos due to the range and then found I had a phone signal. I put the news out to Phil Saunders and a few other locals. Sadly, work stopping Phil dashing down and none of the other South Purbeck Birders were able to get down. I looked again and it had disappeared. It had already walked out of view once, before returning. But five minutes later it hadn't reappeared. I was getting cold in the shade of the head and decided to move back up the hill and check the upper pool from another viewpoint, in case it had moved. This is a larger pool with more muddy edges. I could now see both pools and it wasn't on view on either pool.
The upper pool: Obviously, I didn't try to get closer once I saw it was occupied, so I still haven't got down to check the Darters there. After Portland had breeding Red-veined Darters, I did wonder if there could be any on the Pier Bottom pools. I could see a Migrant Hawker patrolling the upper pool and later some Darters. Presumably, they were the regular Common Darters. I will try to check the pools if I can before we get more rain: when it's best to avoid the pools, because of the risks of a landslip
After fifteen minutes, it flew up from the lower pool, circled a few times and landed at the back of the upper pool. I wasn't any closer, but at least I had a reasonable and warmer viewpoint. By this time, I had heard Phil Bentley was at St Aldhelms and he was on his way to join me. I gave him some directions and tried to get some better photos. Unfortunately, it did another disappearing trick while I wasn't watching and it never reappeared. Perhaps it just wandered behind a tussock or into the reed edge and fell asleep. I spent the best part of an hour watching the pools with Phil. Then I had a final look from the top of Emmets Hill on the way back to the car. This provided a different angle onto the pools, but there were still some parts of the pools, I couldn't see.
The Little Stint dropped onto the larger expanse of mud at the back of the larger pool
Little Stint: It was quite obviously a Juv Little Stint with those tramlines and the pectoral patches. In some of the initial photos, the lower legs looked pale, due to drying mud on them
Checking later with Steve Morrison, this is the first record of a confirmed Little Stint for the St Aldhelms/Winspit patch, albeit his May 1993 record of a Stint sp. was most likely the first record. This was certainly not what I had predicted for the day. Isn't patch Birding brilliant on days like this.
