Finders in the Field: Little Swift, Eastbourne - a first for Sussex
Looking out of the window on the bank-holiday morning of the second day of the new year I could see that it was bright, clear and sunny; blue skies with fluffy white clouds and visibly little wind. Wow, what a difference this was from the recent weeks of grey days, strong gusty winds and rain showers! I had to get outside and do some birding, but which of my usual two patches would it be? Perhaps West Rise Marsh (high water levels, bit of a slog, bootfuls of water), or would it be Beachy Head (lots of dog-walkers, knackering steep uphill slopes)? No, today felt like an easy stroll for once, so why not check out properly, for the first time, Eastbourne’s Sovereign Harbour where I knew I might get a good duck, diver or grebe.
At about 11h15 I parked the car and began walking the seafront eastwards towards Langney Point with its Martello Tower visible a few hundred yards ahead. Remembering that this was to be "serious birding" I started to count the birds for a day-list: there was a Starling, there a Herring Gull, a few Feral Pigeons and, almost immediately and unbelievably, what was unmistakably a Swift of all things winnowing quickly over my head towards the harbour! My heart started to race and whilst lifting the binoculars I knew this had to be a major bird and, sure enough, there was the strikingly obvious rectangular white rump patch I was already half-expecting to find.
Now the panic set in - it was a Little Swift for goodness sake, it would never stick around, nobody else would ever see it! Now I’m naturally a grumpy so-and-so when it comes to social media….I would never get a Twitter account and I had only recently, finally, under pressure, given-in to getting a « smartphone » in order to communicate with local birders - I was even now on a « WhatsApp » group or two! Annoyingly I’d left my reading-glasses in the car and couldn’t decipher anything on the damm thing, but I managed to scramble a typo-ridden short message, erring on the side of caution, to the regional « WhatsApp » group about a swift with a white rump flying over Sovereign Harbour.
I then immediately rang Kris Gillam who I knew would probably be at West Rise, only about 3km away, and whilst he was scrambling as fast as possible to where I was (involving an impressive display of long-distance running) I noticed the bird once again, this time flying over the Martello Tower and around the harbour - incredibly it looked like it might actually hang around a while! I put another message out and almost as soon as Kris arrived he managed to spot the swift over the houses – Thank the Lord! What a relief! Fortunately the bird was to be on view intermittently for most of the following half-hour, last seen disappearing eastwards as a speck over the harbour buildings.
Although several birders close by managed to see it, its visit was regrettably not long enough for many who arrived during the afternoon. I was thrilled to find out later that this was a first for Sussex – Happy New Year!
David Thorns
6 Jan 2023
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