Went for a drive around the Withins this afternoon, ostensibly to see if Ian H's Osprey from yesterday was still around, and quite wonderfully bumped into this single Dotterel on a ploughed field behind Great Altcar, just after 4.30pm.
Lovely scope views of her as she trundled about the sandy ploughed field, preened and sometimes just went to sleep, or out of sight behind a wee ridge.
Completely failed to get an in focus shot - she was a good 200 metres away and the breeze was shaking my scope (excuses, excuses), but I spent an hour ogling this little beauty, as Lapwings and Oystercatchers zipped about.
Actually if you squint really hard from about a foot away from the computer screen, these pictures don't look too bad.
I did consider wandering into the field but as I hate photographers (and birders for that matter) who don't put the bird first I dismissed the idea and enjoyed the Dotterel from the track.
A female, but not quite in full adult plumage I think. Lovely rich rufous underparts, black belly, blue grey neck and stonking big eyestripe.
What a bird.
This is the field it was in, down Engine Lane and on past the private lane to the water works.
GPS reference: N53*32.590, W003*01.241
(a word of caution here, as I am notoriously crap with technology, I may be reading my GPS gizmo wrong - these could be the correct co-ordinates, but they could just as easily be the site of a wadi in the Negev Desert)
Anyway, go down Engine Lane (right hand turn in Great Altcar) and drive out onto the moss until you find some sandy ploughed fields directly south of Great Altcar on your left - it may be there still - I was watching it up till 5.45pm.
Whitethroats, Sedge Warbler, Swallows, Grey and Red Legged Partridge about too and a Buzzard soaring in the hot blue sky.
Good to see plenty of Brown Hares out in the fields, shame the Dotterel wasn't as big as I might have got a decent shot.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies....
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Very disappointing at Marshside this lovely evening - only the Glossy Ibis being of any note.
It was sticking its head out of a channel near Pollys.
No sign of the Garganey.
What's happened to the passage of Dunlin we usually get in May, laced with the odd Curlew Sand?
Great to hear the Glossy Ibis is back where it belongs Derek!
High tides at the weekend may push a few waders onto the marsh, at least I hope it will, 'cos if the weather stays like this, it won't be much cop for seawatching.
Re " What happened to the passage of Dunlin we usually get in May?"
There were about 40k Dunlins on the last WeBS, most as one would expect on the Ribble NNR, with an estimated 17k on the floods on Banks Marsh last Tuesday (with about a thousand Ring Plovers) plus a Short Eared Owl.
I was able to take the Landie onto Marsh (with permission!) and have a go at videoing them last Wednesday but numbers down,as were tides. Nice though to be so close, but not "flushably" so, to birds who may never have seen a man or a Landie before on their journey back to the "frozen North where Walruses play and Polar Bears etc etc". Masses still out by the River though yesterday and more or less inaccessible.
Med Gull over the bank, perhaps one of the local breeders whose nests were flooded by the last high tides and a single Greenshank.
Would love to see Dotterels again on the mosses. Keep sporadically checking around Churchtown Moss but nowt.
Ron
I wasn't referring to the Dunlin on the estuary - I meant the large numbers that have used Marshside No 1 for feeding during the past few springs.