Before the weekend I'd mentioned at home that I was over due a twitch, but also that they rarely happened when convenient like the current bank holiday weekend. Gladly I was wrong. At 10.20am on returning to the car after walking the dogs in Delamere, I realised the phone had been (silently) in meltdown.
There as a GREY-HEADED LAPWING in Northumberland. There was no question of not going, and fortuitously I had nothing too important on. Plans were made, and in no time Paul Baker, Phil W, Mark and I were headed north to Low Newton.
Twenty years ago such an occurrence would probably have been dismissed as an escapee. But in there have been at least four records in the Western Palearctic in the last decade for a species that appears to be unknown in captivity. And with increasingly weird and wonderful occurrences of far Asian vagrants, this one has very much been on the radar in recent years. A classic when, not if, species.
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| Grey-headed Lapwing, Low Newton (Brian Martin) |
Grey-headed lapwings breed in northeast China and Japan, with the mainland population spending winters in northern Southeast Asia for northeastern India to Cambodia. I've seen them Thailand and Vietnam, but not since the 1990s.
It was an easy twitch: plenty of daylight, no traffic, easy parking, a lovely location in decent weather, a carnival atmosphere and an immediately visible bird. There's no doubt this bird will make the grade as a UK first, and a well-deserved find by local Gary Woodburn.
A very lovely bird, looking incredibly out of place in the UK as it fed alone in a sheep-field.
Aside from the star, the adjacent scrape held breeding Avocets and plenty of commoner waders; Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Oystercatcher and Northern Lapwings.
Back home for 9pm.
567 for now, but there appear to be some incoming lumps! Shame, has a nice ring to it.
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