Semipalmated Plover
Charadrius semipalmatus Bonaparte, 1825
Photo © By Félix Uribe, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81339652
STATUS
Nearctic. Monotypic.
OVERVIEW
Species not admitted nationally during the period covered (BOU 1971).
NOT PROVEN
0). 1916 Sussex Rye, female, shot, 8th April, now at Booth Museum, Brighton.
(T. Parkin, British Birds 10: 254; W. Ruskin Butterfield, Hastings & East Sussex Naturalist 2: 247; BOURC (1918), Ibis 60: 240-241; Walpole-Bond, 1938).
[E. M. Nicholson & I. J. Ferguson-Lees, British Birds 55: 299-384 HR].
History Thomas Parkin (1917) in British Birds, Vol. X. p. 254, says: 'On April 10th, 1916, Mr. G. Bristow, taxidermist, of Silchester Road, St. Leonards, brought me in the flesh, for identification, an example of the American Semi-palmated Plover (Charadris semipalmatus), which had been shot on April 8th at Rye, Sussex. The bird was subsequently sexed as a female. The man who shot the bird thought it was an ordinary Ringed Plover, but Mr. Bristow, thinking it too large for a Little Ringed Plover and being puzzled by its semi-palmated foot, brought it to me to examine.'
Admitted nationally in their First List Report as the first for Britain (BOURC (1918) Ibis 60: 240-241).
Walpole-Bond (1938 (3): 13) adds: 'Originally in the Nichols collection, it is now in the Booth Museum, Brighton.'
Comment Hastings rarity. Not acceptable.
