Hudsonian Godwit, Burton Mere Wetlands

I was at the top of Billinge Hill watching a tree pipit this morning when I received news that there had been a Hudsonian godwit at Burton Mere Wetlands yesterday evening. Unfortunately within about 20 minutes of being found it had flown off onto the estuary and there were no subsequent sightings either yesterday or so far this morning. This is species which I had seen before, in fact I'd already seen three in the UK, despite this being only the sixth ever!  Even so, if it came back I knew that it was a bird that I would definitely go to see. It's just one of those American waders that I really like and of course a fabulous North West tick. 

I didn't exactly rush back to my car because at this point the bird still hadn't been seen this morning, but I made sure that I was at least moving in the right direction. I was halfway down the hill when the news broke that I had hoped for. The godwit was back! I contacted Ray and 30 minutes later we were on the M6 heading for Burton Mere Wetlands. 

It was an easy enough twitch, the car park wasn't even full, and after a longish slog from reception we arrived at Border hide to find it not too packed and the bird showing well though asleep. Ten minutes later a couple in front of us left and we had the best seats in the house. 

The godwit stayed mainly asleep, but did occasionally have a preen and a couple of times it lifted it's wings to reveal that breathtaking underwing. No subtleties here, no fine differences in shades of colour to negotiate, no discussions about hues and tones, no miniscule differences of markings to sketch, no need to argue about the scapulars. Nope, a full on stonking black underwing = Hudsonian godwit [full stop].  The birding equivalent of clean bowled, no argument about this decision. All of the other godwits have white underwings. My kind of bird and the 376th species I have seen in the North West. 

Even it's back is quite black, almost reminiscent of spotted redshank. I'm assuming that this is a male.

Other Hudsonian godwits that I have seen were at Blacktoft, near Goole in 1983, Somerset 2015 and St Andrews 2020.

There's actually three species of godwit in this photo, front row from the left, black-tailed, Hudsonian and bar-tailed. Hudsonian is probably most similar to bar-tailed and I did wonder if they might be hanging around together. If so I suppose it's possible that they may eventually leave the black-tailed flock and end up on the beach somewhere. Trouble is there's a lot of beach between Hilbre and Southport. Perhaps a roost such as Seaforth is the best bet? I feel a Merseyside tick coming on......