"I won't dispute the ID of the bird shown on Paul Hackett's two pictures, taken on 28, but I have quite a big concern about the bird photographed at the same location two days later by Mike Malpass. Among other, this last bird apparently had:

- a whitish fore-supercilium, obvious in front of eye (virtually no trace of supercilium in front of eye on 28 March);

- a long, pure white rear-supercilium, contrasting sharply against crown (shortish, strongly obscured by grey-brown flecking on 28 March);

- a rather thin and well-defined dark eye-stripe (broader, more diffuse and paler on 28 March);
- pure white ear-coverts centre (obviously grey-flecked on 28 March);

- an obvious dark crescent at the rear of ear coverts, similar in colour and broadness to eye-stripe (thinner dark crescent at rear of ear-coverts on 28 March, looking much thinner and perhaps slightly darker than eye-stripe);

- buff suffusion limited to the rear flanks (much more extensive and browner on 28 March);

- a mantle seeming quite variegated and contrasting, showing an admixture of black, buff and white flecks (greyer and plainer on 28 March, with pale marks limited to thin white shaft streaks);

- a rather shortish-looking bill, with quite continuously down-curved culmen (looking longer and with proximal half perhaps slightly straighter on 28 March);

- a strongly two-toned bill, with lower mandible straw-coloured, upper mandible blackish (less contrasted, lower mandible seeming dirty flesh and upper mandible greyer on 28 March);

- legs apparently straw-coloured (pinkish on 28 March).

I don't think this bird can be the same as the original Short-toed shown on the 28th March images. Differences in a bird's appearance on two pictures can occur due to differences in lighting and posture. This could be the explanation for some of the above but I find it very hard to believe this can explain everything. I'm fully convinced that a Short-toed was present on 28 March but I really wonder why the 30 March photo shows anything but a Common Treecreeper Certhia familiaris britannica.

Unfortunately, owing to the angle, many wing details can't be seen on Mike's picture. The longest feather of the bastard wing seems to show a complete white edge, connecting with its white tip, which normally supports Short-toed but is far from being diagnostic - identification of a treecreeper based a on single photograph can be extremely tricky. However, if the photographs indeed show two different individuals (which is what I really believe), it would obviously be more likely that the second bird is a local Common Treecreeper, rather than a second (seemingly strongly atypical) vagrant Short-toed.

If this is the case, it can have various implications: either two birds were present on 30 March and Mike Malpass simply photographed the wrong one, or all observers had moved on to watch a Common Treecreeper while the Short-toed was actually gone on that date."

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Many thanks to Mike Malpass and Paul Hackett for allowing use of their photos.