Semi-palmated Plover – Dawlish Warren National Nature Reserve, Dawlish, Devon, 1^st July 1997

Excuse me!!? You want to do WHAT now!???. See my toes?!!??? You're having a laugh!!!!!

Some eleven weeks after it first turned up, and two weeks after it was finally, conclusively, identified and the news was released, I caught up with this one. Having managed to suppress (excuse me?) the initial instinct to go for it very soon after the news was first released, I was then faced with organising a tricky trip when I was either travelling in the opposite direction for the weekend, or working during the week.

Time moved on, and my predicament was not made any easier by the presence of two blinding birds in the country at once, albeit at opposite ends of the country. However, having taken in the Blue-cheeked Bee-eater on Mainland Shetland with such simple ease, I was sufficiently buoyed up to telephone Paul Pugh to gloat about my grip-back.

As he too had not taken in the Semi-palmated Plover, we tentatively agreed to go for it on Tuesday the 1st July, but neither of us could commit to this as we were very busy. Predictably, but understandably, Paul pulled out when I ‘phoned him on the Sunday night. I plotted to go all the same…..

On Monday the 30th June I travelled from Accrington (er, my erstwhile in-laws) to work at Audley, Staffordshire, and then on to a meeting in Burton-on-Trent, at the other end of the county. Meeting over, I then checked out part of the pipeline route, before returning to Audley. 160 miles already, but all the same I was keen to go. The only problem was that the pager suggested that the Semi-palmated Plover had vanished earlier in the day. Fortunately, as indecision set in, another message reported that it had been relocated. Even though my work colleague Mike was on the ‘phone to Nigel, I left in such a rush that he got a note. It was 16:00. I estimated four hours for the trip, and was more or less right. Despite the late hour I got through the West Midlands well, and was doing well until I hit a traffic jam in Somerset. Some 40 minutes delay followed.

I might still have got there in time to see it that evening, if it hadn’t been for my determination to make it to Sowley Services before I filled up. This I failed to do….. .

I ran out of diesel at Collumpton, and having experience of the implications of this, it only took a further 40 minutes to rectify this shortage of diesel, as I stopped under an overbridge, which lead straight into Collumpton, and a garage, which thankfully was still open. I was then able to hurtle on towards my final destination, but even then, I was confused by the layout of Dawlish and Dawlish Warren. Finally, I made it but it was really too late. I yomped towards the hide and was told by a solitary birdwatcher that he had last seen it about an hour ago, but that it had flown off. It was not obvious from the hide, so I walked back along the beach still without any signs that gave me any feeling of optimism.

Some very useful interpretation in the hide at Dawlish Warren!

I met the same birdwatcher back at the car-park, and he imparted lots of useful advice. I was resigned to a night in the car. To help things along I went into Dawlish and found a Chinese take-away. I made my purchase and returned to Dawlish Warren, seeing a Nightjar hawking on the way back. I consumed my meal in the car-park of a pub, and afterwards went in for a pint, but unfortunately this proved to be disappointing in comparison with the Chinese and the Nightjar.

On returning to the car-park I really got myself organised for the night ahead, although it was, initially at least, somewhat disconcerting due to frequent gunshots and cars nearby!

Having slept – finally, soundly, briefly, I was up and about by 04:30 –ish. I again yomped quickly along to the hide, although this time I took a short-cut over the golf-course, as even golfers weren’t up at that time. Although the state of the tide was more favourable, I could only see larger species of wader roosting from the hide. I then made my way to the fenced-off area, where there were indeed Dunlin and Ringed Plover, although as far as I could see there was only one non-adult Ringed Plover. So, I returned to the hide again, still with no success.

On my way back across the foreshore between the hide itself and the access track I was attracted by the call of a Ringed Plover. At first, I couldn’t even find the calling bird, let alone anything else, but finally I got on it amongst the pioneer saltmarsh vegetation. Once I had located it, I noticed that there was another and almost immediately another. Was that it or was it that one? No, that was it – it had to be!!

I picked out what appeared to be a long-legged version of the immature Ringed Plovers, distinctive for this reason and also its ‘different’ expression. I struggled to keep on it as it scampered across the mudflats whilst attempting to refer to Cotteridge and Vinicombe, Rare Birds in Britain and Ireland, but all the same I was reasonably confident, and all the more so the more I looked.

I moved along the foreshore in an attempt to get a better view, but for no apparent reason, as I struggled with my ‘scope and tripod, book, notebook and rucksack, the three Charadrius spp. took off and flew towards the sea. In flight the size difference was very marked, as was the difference in the wing-bar pattern.

I rushed off in the same direction, and as I did so I passed a Golden Retriever as I made my way to the beach, where I failed to locate the three first-summer ‘ringed’ plovers. On my return to the mudflats, I had an altercation with a dog-owner, due to my irritation over her lack of control over her dog.

Having regained my composure, I finally relocated first the ten or so Dunlin, and then the three ‘ringed’ plovers. This time the Semi-palmated Plover was (even) easier to pick out. However, frustratingly once I had re-located it, it again began quickly running and calling, before flying towards the sea again. This time the size difference and wing-bar pattern were even more apparent.

After another quick check of the beach, I decided to cut my losses, and so returned to the car-park. I attempted to give news of my sightings to someone who proved not to be the warden, and so, some 30 minutes later, I ‘phoned the news in to Dick Filby from Sowley Services.

So, I had managed to see two stonking birds in a short space of time, having both birds to myself, and identifying them myself (not that this was particularly difficult to identify the Blue-cheeked Bee-eater!). One storming twitch for a stonking bird in Shetland, followed by a repeat performance for another in Devon less than a week later. And identifying one of the most difficult species on the list was quite a thrill; I was feeling very pleased with myself as I left Dawlish, Devon, the South West of England, etc..

June had been a very good month, particularly if I included the last seven hours of May and the first seven hours of July!!

Most (all except the palmations?!?!?) of the identification criteria were picked up on. Size difference, (particularly noticeable in flight), “chee-wee,” call seemingly quieter on the ground or at first, indistinct wing-bar, jizz – long-legged and hunched, short stubby bill, different, (harder?), face pattern with flat W –shaped supercilium, worn remiges, etc..

Semi-palmated Plover, Dawlish Warren, Dawlish, Devon, July 1997 (photograph credited to Alan Tate).

Dark-eyed Junco – Weston, Portland, Dorset, 8^th December 1989

Our quarry, in a quarry, briefly.

The grotty flu, or despite the grotty flu! And it honestly wasn’t twitcher’s flu! What am I on about? Well, some explanation is clearly needed.

I was, at this time, approaching the end of my first full year as an employee of ERL. Prior to this I had worked on a short-term contact for Press Pipelines on the Wytch Farm and Purbeck to Southampton Pipeline Projects, and prior to this, I had, between September 1984 and September 1987, been an employee of Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council (and prior to this I had done two breeding seasons of Upland Bird Survey work for the Nature Conservancy Council and otherwise, apart from some appalling temporary jobs such stacking shelves in a supermarket, serving behind a bar in a pub and working at The Breck farm plucking geese for Quentin Wareing, I had been on the dole courtesy of Margaret Thatcher).

In this context, Friday the 8th December was remarkable, not just because I twitched Dark-eyed Junco (or Slate-coloured Junco as it was for some time) but because it was the very first day I had ever taken off ill. I hadn’t, I must hasten to say, taken the day off to enable me to twitch the bird.

Rather, I had taken the day off as I felt horrible due to what I assume was the flu (I felt as bad as the Rose-coloured Starling we saw after we had seen the junco looked). However, having done so, when, whilst I was moping around at home, the opportunity arose to twitch the junco, I couldn’t resist. Why not? I could carry on moping, or I could see another really good bird. No contest.

Birders threw sickies all the time to go off to see birds. They used endlessly cunning ruses to create the opportunity to see birds during the ‘working’ week. For example, some birders (who perhaps weren’t the most inventive) obviously had multiple grandmas, as they were forever going to their grandma’s funeral. Mike Thompson, my very good friend from St. Albans, came up with a deadly ailment most Octobers, and, like many birders, was in the Scillies for a week or so, carefully wearing sun-block throughout, and swearing Pete Ewer and I to secrecy, as some of his fellow lecturers at the old building college in St. Albans also drank at The Farrier’s. Indeed, the previous October, Pete and I had had a fantastic day in the Scillies when a small group of fellow regulars at The Farrier’s, who had chartered a yacht and then pub-crawled along the Cornish coast to the Scillies, invited us on board the yacht, Tarragon, for the day. We sailed to Tresco, and whilst Pete and I birded they were in the pub, and then we sailed to St. Agnes and anchored in the Gugh Sound, me having taken the helm. I did four islands that day..... . Meanwhile Mike hid.

But I digress. I had very genuinely ‘phoned in sick, and then gone off to see a bird, as an after-thought.

The junco had been around since Sunday the 3rd December (and remained until the 8th April) Pete and I (and possibly Mike, although he would have had to skive off college to do so..... ) travelled from St. Alban’s to Portland (presumably Pete had taken the day off rather than risking waiting until the weekend). Once there we quickly found the appropriate place, one of the quarries near Weston.

As we approached two birders they appeared to be ‘scoping rubbish in the quarry below. Rubbish!! In amongst it the junco was feeding – looking very much like a feeding Chaffinch, or, more to the point, a Teydean Chaffinch (or, as we say nowadays, a Blue Chaffinch – I think!!).

Inconveniently, I had chose to eat an apple just before this; before I could get onto it properly – although I did get it in the bins – it rapidly worked its way out of the quarry, flying to various places en route at which further brief views with my bins were obtained. Ultimately, it moved out of the quarry into a nearby garden, where I got further views with my bins, and crucially, a brief view with my ‘scope. And then it was off.

It had dark grey upper-parts and also under-parts except the belly and under-tail coverts, under-tail and outer tail feathers which were white. It had a pink bill. It called briefly, and this was reminiscent of Yellowhammer, as was the jizz.

Subsequent trips to Weston produced a few more brief views of this bird (unsuccessfully on the 17th December, but successfully on the 28th December).

However, ironically, on the 1st January 1990 I saw another at Church Crookham in Hampshire! This was presumably soon after when the news was finally released; what was considered to be the same bird had previously been there between the 30th May and the 7th June 1987, on the 20th May 1988 and the 7th February 1989 and then from the 26th December 1989 onwards (until the 7th March 1990)!

Dark-eyed Junco, Weston, Portland, Dorset, December 1989 (photograph credited to unknown).