Three steps forward, two steps back

Another three (briefly four) species were added to the year-list today and one removed. First the removal, due to woefully inaccurate information regarding the northern boundary of the GOS recording area, I'd erroneously ticked off Ring Ouzel whilst in Powys,... bugger. New species today were: Little Stint, Scaup, Arctic Tern and Swift.

And now begins a twisted tale of doubt and paranoia, a salutary story as to why birding is bad for your psychological well-being and why waders are the spawn of Satan. Picture the scene: a bleary-eyed birder, intent on a seawatch, stops briefly on the second platform at Goldcliff; about 200 Dunlin fidget and jostle on the back of the large shingle island; an earlier report of Little Stint bobs, phalarope-like, on the swell of the birder's subconscious; and then, up pops a wee, greyish, small-billed head; a stint/peep shuffles across a gap and disappears into the throng. Bob's your mother's brother, Little Stint goes on the year-list, off goes the birder happy as the proverbial Larry.

At a slightly less anti-social hour, three locally renowned observers follow in the footsteps of the first, bag a Sanderling on the first lagoon and make their way to the seawall.

Birding musketeers: "Much doing?"
Larry-like birder: "No, did you get the Little Stint?"
Birding musketeers: "Nope, one Sanderling though"

The (slightly less) Larry-like birder thinks "surely not", dismisses the possibility and continues to stare at the wobbly blank canvas that is the Bristol Channel. But, of course, the doubt nibbles away at the certainty of the stint, paranoia consumes the diminutive calidrid and disgorges in its place the plump, hind toe-less form of a smug-faced Sanderling. Do you have any idea how smug a Sanderling can be? Surely the most evil of the waders. Oh sure, they look "purer than the driven..." in their whiter than white winter dress, but we know the malevolent machinations crossing and recrossing their little avian brains. Smirking all across its stubby little bill, it sits, on the barren shingle ridge of the birder's mind and, every now and again, stretches a strikingly contrasting wing.

Other birds come and go; three or four Arctic Terns move up-channel, a few swifts shoot inland and a very smart drake Scaup hangs out with the local Tufties. News of a 'funny' swift at Uskmouth induces mild panic and a brief sojourn to the far end of the reserve.

But back comes the birder to Goldcliff, the hateful Sanderling forcing a return to the fateful second platform, its little black bill probing at the softest parts of the ornithological psyche. Of course there is no Little Stint offering salvation from amongst the Dunlin now, no redemption of mind by minuta and no bleeding Sanderling either!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it's off the list, still think I saw a Little Stint (somebody get a photo, please!), still can't believe I f****d up quite as royally as it would appear I may have, and still looking for something to wipe the smile off a certain Sanderling's conceited little fizzog. Oh the shame of it all!

PS. 140 for the year.
PPS. Note to self - mustn't let imagination run riot.