Identify these birds - Pagham Harbour RSPB site - Hampshire, UK (1 Viewer)

[Jamkat]

Hi,

I took this on Monday 22nd February but could not get near enough to identify. Is one a curlew?

Took somebody help identify the birds please.

Thanks

 

[Joseph Bouvier]

Well, the larger central bird looks like a species of godwit to me, either black tailed or bar tailed godwit. The other larger ones on the island could be golden plovers or black bellied plovers. The smaller birds look like a dunlins. No curlews there though

 

[birdboybowley]

Barwit and Grey Plovers and Dunlin

 

[Alexander Stöhr]

Hello, I agre with birdboybowley, too:
I see Dunlins (the small ones with round, compact body), Grey Plover (the greater birds), because of contrasting white belly reching quite high up to the breast and general jizz (because of shape?).
As the Godwit is more difficult for me (I hope others can confirm?), I hope you can say something more about this bird, because the islandic ssp of Black tailed Godwit looks different from the ssp I usually see here , and this should be the one that winters in Britain. But after downloading the image and enlarge it, the bill that looked straight in the picture, changed to an uptilted one, and is has become clear (?) that the appearantly all dark tail is in fact a picture artefact. So I agree it looks better for a Bar-tailed (I must admit, that the bird looked better for a Black tailed in the thumbnail. Reason? Dont know)

The hardest bird for me is the bird in the middle front (Redshank? Godwit, with spindly legs due to picture quality with overlit effects making legs to appear slender).

 

[birdboybowley]

Redshank for me

 

[Alexander Stöhr]

Thank you!

 

[Jonno52]

If the larger bird is a Godwit, it would seem more like Bar-tailed. Brightening the image as attached shows streaked upperparts: they would be plain grey in Black-tailed. Also the supercilium looks longer than in Black-tailed. But for various reasons (I'm now flatbound) I haven't seen any shorebirds for about 20 years, so don't take my word for it!

 

[Jamkat]

Barwit and Grey Plovers and Dunlin

Thanks very much for you assistance.

 

[Jamkat]

Hello, I agre with birdboybowley, too:
I see Dunlins (the small ones with round, compact body), Grey Plover (the greater birds), because of contrasting white belly reching quite high up to the breast and general jizz (because of shape?).
As the Godwit is more difficult for me (I hope others can confirm?), I hope you can say something more about this bird, because the islandic ssp of Black tailed Godwit looks different from the ssp I usually see here , and this should be the one that winters in Britain. But after downloading the image and enlarge it, the bill that looked straight in the picture, changed to an uptilted one, and is has become clear (?) that the appearantly all dark tail is in fact a picture artefact. So I agree it looks better for a Bar-tailed (I must admit, that the bird looked better for a Black tailed in the thumbnail. Reason? Dont know)

The hardest bird for me is the bird in the middle front (Redshank? Godwit, with spindly legs due to picture quality with overlit effects making legs to appear slender).

Hi Alexander - Thank you, I appreciate your replies.

 

[Jamkat]

If the larger bird is a Godwit, it would seem more like Bar-tailed. Brightening the image as attached shows streaked upperparts: they would be plain grey in Black-tailed. Also the supercilium looks longer than in Black-tailed. But for various reasons (I'm now flatbound) I haven't seen any shorebirds for about 20 years, so don't take my word for it!

Hi Jonno52, Thanks - I appreciate your input.