American Golden Plover Marshside

This moulting adult American golden plover was on Crossens Inner Marsh at Marshside today. Amazingly it's my first adult, all of the others I have seen have been juveniles, so nice to get a plumage tick. I'm amazed at how well this photo has turned out, the bird was about 150m away, it was slightly against the light, the wind was around force 6 and the photo was taken by hand holding my phone up to my telescope! No adapters were involved in the taking of this photo!

Particularly noticeable was the broad white supercillium which met above the bill and also the overall grey tones in the plumage when compared to the nearby European golden plover.

I must admit to being a little doubtful about this bird before we arrived on site. Birdguides simply said "American Golden Plover, Marshside, one", with no other information about exactly where the bird was or what age or plumage it was in, whilst RBA said American Golden Plover "reported" at Marshside as if they weren't totally convinced. It all seemed a bit vague. However on arrival at Marshside we discovered that the person who had seen it was John Dempsey and that it had been near Pollys Pool but then flown towards Crossens Inner Marsh. After that it was a relatively simply matter of picking it out from the flock.........except that they were all hunkered down against the wind with their heads tucked in! Oh well, we found it in the end and it was worth the effort.

Earlier we'd called in at Marton Mere for a juvenile white-winged black tern, and then Newton Marsh for my 3rd grey phalarope in four days.