Kentish Plover – Ferrybridge, Dorset, 2^nd May 1988

So, on Monday the 2nd May 1988 (presumably a Bank Holiday), Paul Pugh, who had again been visiting me in Dorset whilst I was working there, disappeared off to see a Greater Sand Plover at Dawlish Warren in Devon. Sure enough, Birdline almost immediately produced something much closer – I was ‘phoning from somewhere near The Fleet and the bird was at Ferrybridge – all of a couple of miles away, if not less.

So it was that I was able to tick off a Kentish Plover as it was feeding on the dried mud-flats.

It was a small, slim plover which had pale brown upper-parts, and white under-parts including the throat, neck sides, face and a collar. It had a rufous crown with a dark patch on the upper lores, a broad white supercilium, a dark eye-stripe which broadened and curved downwards behind the eye and a black patch on the upper-breast. It had a short, thin black bill and darkish-olive legs.

27 years and one week later, I finally caught up with another, the first for my Scottish list, at Tyninghame, East Lothian (a fantastic site, at which I had previously seen two Greater Sand Plovers).

Kentish Plover, Ferrybridge, Dorset, May 1988 (photograph credited to unknown).

I couldn't readily source a photograph of the bird I saw actually at Tyninghame on the 9th May 2025, but here's one, which, fantastically (on the basis of plumage details) is considered to be the same bird at Kilnsea in East Yorkshire on the 10th May 2025 (and it was then subsequently seen at Pegwell Bay in Kent on the 11th May 2025!!). The wonders of digital photography and social media! (Photograph credited to Colin Bushell).