Saturday 19 January 2013

Golden Plover

I  didn't have much time for birding today but went out for a while this morning. I decided to go and look at the Golden Plover that have now arrived on patch in unprecedented numbers. I tried the lane adjacent to Colyton WWTW where I had reasonable views of the singleton on Tuesday. Phil and Clive were already there and the field was full of birds but  none of them were Golden Plovers. Flocks soon began moving north though, coming from the Bridge Marsh/Colyord Marsh direction and flying right over us. Some landed in the fields nearby but were always pretty distant. Clive and I decided to walk down the footpath adjacent to Lower Cownhayne Farm and as we were scanning over the fields we suddenly noticed a small group of Golden Plovers relatively close to us. The had seen us first and were in 'frozen mode' hoping we hadn't seen them. After we had watched then for a few minutes they got used to our presence and began feeding again. I was hoping they'd  wander even closer but they were flushed by a Sparrowhawk. They were in good digiscoping range so I got a couple of nice shots of one of them. I couldn't make it out yesterday afternoon and so missed the pair of Pintail which I could have added to my patch photo yearlist. I had a quick look for them this morning with no luck. I haven't heard if they've been seen today or not. I'll have more time tomorrow so fingers crossed!



1 comment:

Tim White said...

Nice pics of the landed one Karen! Closest I got after work was about 200 metres so mine were rubbish (only got a 300 mm lens). Hoping for better tomorrow!