Sunday 13 March 2011

Plover's respite

Golden Plover

I spent most of the day with Paul 'P-Go' Goodman at Canons Farm today. As dad was dropping me off we saw a flock of about fourteen Canada Geese fly over, the most I've ever had. A brief search for the Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers did not provide any sightings for us but we did hear one drumming and just as we were nearing the tree it was settled on the birder watching it saw it fly off towards the school.

Golden Plover twitch

A walk around the patch didn't yield much other than the usual Little Owls. P-Go headed home and I went back to the Watchpoint to meet Roy. We had a brief look for the woodpeckers without any success before returning to the Watchpoint. As we were watching a pair of Cormorants fly over we heard a Golden Plover which flew past us and dropped like a bullet into Skylark Field. A few seconds later it was up again and dropped into Broad Field. We made our way over. Up again and it finally dropped into Quail Field and didn't get up again so we walked over and were soon enjoying views of the first on-the-deck record of this species for CFBW. It ended up staying until at least 4.05pm, when I left. It was well-twitched with Ian, PGo, Paul and Colin making it and a couple of dog-walkers adding it to their lists.

Golden Plover

As you can see in the flight image, a few primaries are missing in the right wing and this isn't moult - some feathers on the back of the head also looked blemished - we were thinking this bird may have been popped at by a Sparrowhawk or Peregrine.