On August 12th 1990, at about 11:15, I arrived at the silt lagoon at Oldbury-on-Severn Nuclear Power Station, along with P. A. Fraser, A. Hitchcock, M. S. Ponsford and C. J. Stone. The high tide wader roost consisted of 360 Ringed Plovers, 485 Dunlins, a Turnstone and a stint. The latter, although in summer plumage, struck me as looking rather cold and grey but, as I was viewing it front on, it was difficult to see much of its body. I began to suspect that the bird might prove to be a Semipalmated Sandpiper and we gradually moved closer, eventually getting to within about 30 metres of the flock, with bright sunlight directly behind us. We watched it at close range until 13:50, when the flock flew back to the estuary as the tide receded.

During the two hours and forty minutes that we had the bird under observation it was very inactive, most of the time sitting on the mud asleep with the other waders but, occasionally, it stood up and preened. Several times the flock took flight, and twice the stint was left crouching alone on the mud for some minutes before flying off independently. On the last occasion (at about 13:20) it passed quite close to us, calling, turned and flew right over our heads then disappeared towards the estuary with the Turnstone. A few minutes later it returned with the Ringed Plovers and Dunlins and was then more active, walking around on the dry mud at close range. At this point all five of us could clearly see its foot webbing.

General appearance and key features:

The following description emphasises the main differences from adult summer Little Stint.

SIZE: An obvious stint, with a short bill and black legs. Conspicuously smaller than Dunlin, but we all agreed, despite the lack of direct comparison, that it was slightly bigger, bulkier and taller than Little Stint. When it stood next to a Dunlin, the top of its head was approximately level with the top of a Dunlin's back.

PLUMAGE: It was in summer plumage except that the lower line of upper scapulars had been moulted and replaced by relatively plain grey winter feathers. All the other scapulars, visible wing coverts and tertials were blackish with contrasting pale buff or white fringes, completely lacking any obvious brown or rusty tones. The breast band petered out in the middle, but consisted of blackish flecking on a pure white background. The whole impression, therefore, was of a cold, greyish ­toned stint, whose general appearance recalled a Sanderling in rather grey-toned summer plumage. There were no obvious brown, orange, chestnut or buff tones anywhere on the bird. Also, it lacked pale mantle V's.

HEAD PATTERN: The crown was dark, with no split supercilium, giving it an obvious capped effect; the dark extended right down to the bill. There was a long whitish supercilium, flaring slightly at the rear, and a dark loral line which ran through the eye before spreading into a solid but greyer fan-shaped ear-covert patch. A narrow whitish eye-ring, apparently more or less totally enclosed within the grey, put the polishing touch to a very distinctive facial appearance which seemed to me to be totally characteristic of Semipalmated Sandpiper.

PRIMARY PROJECTION: Very short, the primaries often appeared cloaked by the tertials, with the tail projecting beyond. At times, however, the primaries just projected beyond the upper tertials by literally no more than a millimetre.

FOOT WEBBING: When seen wing-stretching, early on, it appeared to have quite obvious webbing between the toes, but the stretching action was so quick that I wanted to confirm this. Towards the end of the observation, when it was walking around on dry mud, the webbing was quite obvious, forming a distinctly rounded area whereas on the accompanying Dunlins it was so obviously pointed.

CALL: At one stage, when all the waders flew past, I distinctly heard a soft, thin chreep call come from the flock. It sounded like a Semipalmated to me, but obviously I could not be sure that it came from the bird. When it flew off on its own later, however, it gave a single soft, quiet call which I found difficult to write down. PAF described it as cherk, but it was short and quick, softer and distinctly less penetrating than the call of Little Stint.

Other features and observations:

BILL: Quite deep at the base, tapering evenly to the tip which, when viewed in profile, was quite blunt. No lateral broadening was noted at the tip. The bill was probably slightly longer than the average Little Stint's.

CROWN: The crown feathers themselves appeared black, with pale grey edgings, producing a mottled effect. The crown was darkest at the front and extended down to the bill, where it spread out sideways slightly over the top.

NAPE: Cold grey, faintly streaked. Appeared to have a slightly brownish tint at first, but I could not detect this later.

MANTLE: Streaked pale buff/ black. No hint of pale mantle or scapular lines.

UPPER SCAPULARS: Lower row moulted out and replaced by winter feathers which were dull grey with inconspicuous narrow dark shaft streaks and slightly paler fringes. Upper rows of smaller feathers blackish, edged buff, although the front ones had distinctly browner fringes, the only real hint of brown anywhere on the bird, but this was not particularly obvious.

LOWER SCAPULARS: Two rows of black feathers, contrastingly edged pale buff, with no warmer tones.

WING COVERTS: Median and greater coverts as lower scapulars. The rest of the wing coverts were not generally visible as they were overlain by the lower scapulars, but the marginal coverts, at the bend of the wing, appeared slightly browner when visible.

TERTIALS AND SUB-SCAPULARS: Blacker than scapulars and wing coverts and contrastingly edged white.

UNDER PARTS: Pure snowy white. Streaking from the mantle extended on to the breast sides in lines, but petered out towards the centre of the breast, where there was fine black streaking and spotting on a pure white background. There was a line of flecking slightly below the breast band.

LEGS AND FEET: Black, with greyish tint at times.

FLIGHT PATTERN: In flight the bird appeared to be a typical stint, with narrow wing bar and dark centre to rump and tail. It was small and compact in flight, like a Little Stint.

As this bird appeared with Ringed Plovers and Dunlins which come mainly from Iceland or Greenland, it seems likely to me that it had moved down with them, rather than being a freshly-arrived trans-Atlantic vagrant or a summering individual from Europe.

This record has been accepted by the British Birds Rarities Committee and is the first for Avon. The bird was not present the next day, but on the 14th it was seen again by Dr F. A. Clements who had good views of it for about 20 minutes until 13:3O. It was not present on the 15th.

Keith Vinicombe - August 1990.