Grey-headed Plover – Low Newton-by-the-Sea, Northumberland, 5^th May 2023

See, that's the thing with this here birding affliction.

Just when you think you’re on top of things it yanks you back to the awful(?) reality that there’s still plenty else to see, or that you need to see.

After (finally – after not connecting with it in Lothian when it was first identified and relocated on subsequent days in mid-winter 2022/2023 and after it had been rediscovered in Fife on Friday 28th April 2023) catching up with the Stejneger’s Scoter (and all and sundry from down my birding years) at Lower Largo in Fife on the morning of Sunday 30th April, I journeyed to Castle Stuart near Inverness, where I was working once again.

I basked in a warm sense of satisfaction, as a result of finally connecting with a much sought after first for the United Kingdom with relative ease and being back working at Castle Stuart, my all-time favourite project. Life was good. Very good.

This warm glow lasted less than 24 hours.

I cannot remember just how and when I became aware on the presence of another ‘first for’ (this one being only just on the radar) in the form of a Grey-headed Lapwing (a situation complicated by problems with Rare Bird Alert) but certainly there were 17 messages on RBA from 10.55 onwards during the course of Monday 1st May, and Twitter was alive with people connecting with it from then onwards.

Having just arrived / started work at Castle Stuart I had no such option, not in the immediate term anyway.

I was working as the Ecological Clerk of Works (ECoW) at Castle Stuart on the project which finally involved building a second golf course there, and construction had only been underway for less than a month. I was in post to satisfy a Planning Condition. The terms of this involved me being on site a few days each fortnight as required, and being that the project was just getting underway, there was a lot of ‘required’. I’d envisaged being on-site all week (even if Stuart McColm, my line manager, might be concerned about the hours that this would involve) and effectively, the week had only just begun.

Sod’s Law.

I tried to concentrate on work and reconciled myself to the idea it wasn’t going to stick, and as such, I shouldn’t get too hung up about it.

However, news came through on the Tuesday morning, ‘It’ was still there. And on a regular basis social media informed me of more and more friends, etc., connecting with it, a species of which I had been completely, blissfully unaware of until that Monday morning. 

GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRR………. .

… head down, continue to try to ignore, continue to try to concentrate on work matters. And the same again on Wednesday …… and then Thursday.

But the longer it ‘stuck’, the more the week progressed, the more work I accomplished, the more a plan formulated in my head. Just if, IF it was to stick until Friday, I could get a flyer (as it was a long weekend because of the Coronation of Charles III) and see it ‘on the way home’ (albeit that this would involve driving 1.5 – 2 hours beyond home, before then driving back).

Mik Wells, the Construction Manager and my house mate, was in on my plan, and supportive of it. In fact, he questioned why I didn’t just go for it earlier in the week, but I had things to do, including commitments. It just wasn’t in my nature to break these. Amongst them was a much-heralded evening of beer and food with Mik at the Clubhouse on the evening of Thursday 4th May. And then the following morning, I was hopeful of meeting Gordon Howat of R&A Sustainable Agronomy Services. He had provided useful source documents enabling me to address certain aspects of various planning conditions. Meeting him could only be a good thing.

However, earlier on the Thursday I packed my bags as best as I could and loaded up the car with everything I could.

Mik and I then went to the Clubhouse for our evening, which was very enjoyable – two pints of Black Isle Brewery Goldfinch IPA and a piri-piri chicken burger and chips in Mik’s company with fantastic views over the Moray Firth to the Black Isle.

When we’d finished, young Charlotte, the bar and restaurant manageress, gave us a lift back to Castle Cottage, so that I didn’t have to drive.

So it was that the following morning there WAS positive news at 07:07. My plan quickly kicked into gear. I rapidly washed, dressed and packed and then walked from Castle Cottage to the Clubhouse. Here I was treated with the usual exemplary service and treated myself to a bacon roll with my latte. I messaged Stuart about the impending arrival of Gordon Howat, and responded to an e-mail from Andrew Howard, the Factor for Moray Estates.

It was just 08:20.

As I finished my e-mail Stuart arrived at the clubhouse accompanied by Gordon Howat, to whom he introduced me. The three of us sat down for a quick meeting during which we discussed the all-singing, all-dancing Golf (and Environment) Management Plan which I was producing to satisfy another of the planning conditions. It’s purpose was to enable the more formalised management of the golf course and the habitats therein and nearby, as well as providing a home for all the good stuff required for Golf Environment Organisation accreditation (and Audubon Society certification…).

All very useful, despite my circumstances.

Still, I was soon away, and commenced my long drive south on the A9(T) and M90, past home in South Queensferry, and then around the city bypass and south on the A1(T) to the Northumberland coast. This went well.

As I drove on the minor roads between to A1(T) and my destination outside High Newton-by-the-Sea, I mulled over just how many stonking birds Northumberland had provided for me down the years.

Waren Mill, Bamburgh, Seahouses, Beadnell….. . Here I was jerked from my reminiscences as I realised, contrary to the RBA directions, this wasn’t to where I should be navigating, but rather I should be finding my way to Newton-by-the-Sea.

No real problem though, I quickly parked up, re-assessed and then navigated straight to High Newton-by-the-Sea. Here I again stopped (near the pub I had enjoyed langoustines at with Ellen and Tessa years earlier) and assessed which way I need to go to find the Newton Steads car-park. Fortunately, I opted for the right option, although I was a little phased by signs suggesting ‘no parking beyond here’ en route to the said car-park, such that I sought clarification from two birders walking back along the lane towards me, and as I was to find out, towards the bird.

It was 14:00, and I had been driving for five hours.

Anyway, once I had located the car-park and parked up, I wandered back across the car-park to the ticket machine. In doing so, I bumped into Mike Fraser, the ex-Lothian and Borders RSPB Conservation Officer who was with a friend of his. I chatted to them for somewhile (I always had a lot of time for him) before he encouraged me just to go. So, having faffed about at the ticket machine before successfully getting a ticket for £4.50 and placing it in my car, I was off. But which way? Mike had offered directions, but as ever, these hadn’t really registered, and so, to an extent, I was making it up as I went along. Back along the lane along which I’d driven, and then right along a track through self-catering accommodation, etc.. It felt sort of right, but sort of wrong, and I couldn’t afford the latter.

I asked a woman outside one of the self-catering places, who turned out to be a cleaner. When I asked her about the ‘rare bird’ she just commented along the lines that ‘people like you had been going that way and that way’. At least this seemed vaguely promising. I continued on my way, and it slowly emerged that I was walking on the route to a viewing point along what was effectively a courtesy access granted by the farmer.

I followed this through the complex of self-catering and similar, to beyond, from where I could see birders on the soil mounds of a compound off to the left – the viewpoint of the adjacent flat fields frequented by the bird and others.

As quickly as being jiggered allowed, I made my way there, and once in the compound, clambered up onto the soil bund at a point at which I was able to do this.

I assembled my ‘scope next to a lad who had been behind me at the ticket machine, and who had overtaken me as we arrived at the compound. He was quickly onto the bird. I was less so, but was determined to find it myself.

This I did, although it was initially well-hidden behind and then within a dense patch of reed canary grass around one of the shallow pools within the extensive flat field involved. Greylag Geese, Mallards and Lapwings were also present here.

Anyway, I had seen it, or at least its head and neck. I waited, and eventually it emerged, and despite the weird combination of heat haze and haar, I could finally see all of the bird. After a short while it flew off south calling, but soon returned, having been tracked by the bloke stood next to me, who commentated as it went south and then returned north. As it flew back almost overhead and briefly circled and dropped back into the field it continued to call and also, very briefly, displayed in flight.

Once back in the chosen field, apart from one or two short flights, it generally wandered around feeding in the typical walking and pausing way of a plover, This allowed me to take it in in a relaxed way, getting subsequent arrivals to my left onto it, and discussing it and the scoter-fest with those to my right, including the young lad, who proved to be an erstwhile friend of Rob Dowley’s from Shropshire whom I had previously met on Unst.

I was struck by its similarity with other large plovers I had seen elsewhere in the world, in particular with Southern Lapwing in Trinidad and Tobago and Chile and with Spur-winged Plover in New Zealand, as it was a large plover well-adapted to exploiting the open areas of wet grassland habitats created by mankind (it also recalled both Sociable Plover and White-tailed Plover in flight, due to the wing pattern).

It was a statuesque plover (potentially twice the size of nearby Lapwings) which was often tall and erect. However, it also had a bizarre ‘banana-like’ posture at times.

The rounded grey head caused me to think of both Pallas’s Sandgrouse and Wood Pigeon on occasion.

It had ‘Collared Dove brown’ upperparts, with black wing-tips and a ‘Wood Pigeon grey’ head, neck and upper breast. It had a distinctive almost solid black U-shaped breast band, and white underparts.

The tip of the tail had a brownish black edging, and as suggested, the wing pattern was the similar to that of Sociable or White-tailed Plover, involving black primaries, a triangular white band extending from the alula and then right across the hind wing of each wing, with a mid-brown triangle extending from the bend in the wing across the forewing to the body. It had long bright yellow legs and a longish black-tipped bright yellow plover type bill.

I watched it for some 90 minutes before I decided I needed to get on. I arrived back at the car just before my £4.50 car-parking ticket lapsed, and travelled back to South Queensferry, exhausted but elated.

Grey-headed Plover, Low Newton-by-the-Sea, Northumberland, May 2023 (photograph credited to Gary Thorburn).

Franklin’s Gull – near Scorton Gravel Pits and Bolton-on-Swale, North Yorkshire, 12^th November 1991

At the time in the moving feast that is listing (due mainly to taxonomic changes) this was my 365th bird and I made some comment about the number of days in the year... . I’ll not do that here.

Whilst working on the North West Ethylene Pipeline on Tuesday the 12th November 1991 I sneaked off from the northern part of the pipeline route in my jurisdiction near Lancaster to traverse the Pennines and indulge in some nostalgia travelling through the Yorkshire Dales (and back!) to finally catch up with this one.

Once there (where?) I wondered why, as I was faced by hundreds of Black-headed Gulls following a tractor and plough in a very large field adjacent to a tip and working gravel pit.

One solitary birder, with wife, had the field under review but the distance and the size / moves of the flock, not to mention the weather, looked distinctly unpromising. So I set up ‘scope and steeled myself for a long scan. However, during discussions with the other birder I found out the object of our quest was still partially hooded, so although distinctly unimpressed, I became a bit more impressed. But several scans later I was a bit less impressed again. 

Some other birders arrived but we didn’t have any news to give them widespread optimism.

But..... salvation was at hand. The now very bored (non-birding?) wife emerged from the car, and took over the ‘scope, and immediately pronounced, “There’s one there with a hood!”. At the same time, my most recent scan settled on the same bird. I alerted the other others, and then took it in.

Unfortunately, as we attempted to get closer views, our advance coincided with the tractor driver dismounting the tractor and flushing the flock. But, although it had been distant views, these were still reasonable ones.

The darker grey mantle, small size, dark head and striking black and white primary tips were the standout features noted.

In April 2008 I caught up with another in the gull roost at Draycote Water, Warwickshire.

Franklin's Gull, Bolton-on-Swale, North Yorkshire, November 1991 (photographer unknown).