Tibetan Sand Plover – Rimac, Lincolnshire, 14^th May 2002

On the night of the 11th May 2002, a Saturday, my ex- Gillian and I were out with our friends Graham Clark and Christine Reid in Edinburgh, taking advantage on the opportunity to do so as my Mum was visiting and therefore baby-sitting. Early on, on what proved to be a very long night of excessive eating, drinking and partying, news of Greater Sand Plover became news of a Lesser Sand Plover* on the MegaAlert..... .

(* Clearly, sand plovers were reinvented since this account was written way back when, and what was Lesser Sand Plover became Siberian Sand Plover and Tibetan Sand Plover - the bird in question here - in 2023).

There was no immediate response from either Graham or I as we couldn’t do anything about it there and then, and we were having a good time. And soon afterwards we were too pissed, and as a result not capable of even thinking about the following day, Sunday the 12th May. That day I couldn’t even get my act together to go to Aberlady Bay for Kentish Plover, a Scottish tick, let alone Rimac, in far-away Lincolnshire for Lesser Sand Plover.

So, on Monday the 13th May, as usual, I was back to work, flying down from Edinburgh to London Heathrow, on this occasion armed with binoculars.

On arrival at Bechtel I 'phoned Mike Thompson to investigate any remote possibility of going with him, but he explained that he had pre-empted the transformation of the bird from a Greater to a Lesser on the Saturday when he primed Pete Ewer about the Greater Sand Plover, and as such had twitched it successfully on Sunday with Pete and Angela.

The pressure was on, but my head still not clear enough to make any definitive plans, now due to a lack of sleep caused by a further curtailed night of sleep, this time caused by the girls and my early flight, rather than drink.

I did though place an e-mail request for a lift on the Surfbirds website and then with Rare Bird Alert. Later, at c.13.00 I received a message relating to my lift required on the pager. However, unfortunately the only response was from Graham telling me that he was now intending to travel from Edinburgh to Lincolnshire on Monday night on his way to Norfolk and then Hertfordshire before his next trip. Neither of us could think of a way of combining his trip south to Lincolnshire with mine north. I asked him to give me a report from the scene though.

I returned to my flat in St. Albans that evening to find a message on the answerphone from Mike offering use of his spare birding equipment. He urged me to put another request for a lift on the pager that night, but I still hadn't defined a strategy beyond taking my binoculars with me to work the following morning.

I had though researched train times and so I resolved that once I had news on the Tuesday morning, I would negotiate a ‘day pass’ and make my way to Cleethorpes by train, if nothing else offered itself.

As I left the flat that morning at 06:30 my mobile went off and I answered to find that it was my ‘reporter on the spot’ telling me he too had just seen it. The pressure was really on now as Graham had caught up with it, as well as Mike and Pete!

I continued on my way to work, contemplating opting out and going straight to Kings Cross and getting the first train to Cleethorpes. Almost, but not quite.... .

Still in a quandary, I reached work and resolved to confront the issue, even if it involved taking a day off. I broached the issue with Ian ?????? (the senior engineer with responsibility for the environmental cohort) first who basically said ‘go for it’ and then with Clifton Schindel (my direct line-manager, a very young American ‘boy’ environmental engineer with whom I often clashed) second. Given the lack of workload at the time, he too was reasonably positive, surprisingly so.

I put out another lift request on the pager, this time after 'phoning Andrew Raines at Rare Bird Alert, and whilst I waited for the resultant calls, investigated train times again.

However, then it dawned on me that Bechtel had a travel section on the ground floor and perhaps, given the logistics of getting a train / taxi and taxi train and the problematic lack of lifts offered, hiring a car was the way to go.

I quickly made my way there and explained my predicament to the main person in the office. He assigned one of his staff, Jo, to the case and although she had just arrived at work, we very quickly agreed that my best option would be to hire a small car from Europcar in Brentford on Bechtel rates, with the option of returning it to Luton Airport. Given the £55 train fare, the charges seemed reasonable and so I committed myself, and Jo confirmed the arrangements with Europcar.

After a quick change of clothes into what passed for birding gear amongst the meagre selection of non-office clothes I retained in my flat in St. Albans, I bade my colleagues at Bechtel goodbye. At c.09:10 I hailed a taxi to take me from Hammersmith Broadway to Gillette Corner on Great West Road, the A4 through Brentford. Lovely! The taxi driver and I found the Europcar offices with reasonable ease, and some 40 minutes before the arranged time of 10:00 I arrived at the Europcar offices to collect my Renault Clio.

This all went reasonably well, with the result that well before 10:00 I was on my way to Lincolnshire from West London.

The only drawback was that Europcar were unable to provide any sort of road map and so I navigated all the way there, using my geographers / birders intuition and a tiny road map in my diary.

I made good time and arrived some 3.5(?) hours after leaving West London. Unfortunately, as I made my way off the Lincolnshire Wolds towards the coast the pager announced that the Lesser Sand Plover had been lost.

This increased my velocity to new levels, despite me noticing the increased number of speed cameras abounding in rural Eastern England since I last drove there.

I arrived at the Rimac carpark, with its memories of a similar dash to see Alpine Accentor, and in less time than usual assembled my gear, as I had none. What I did have consisted of my bins, mobile ‘phone, pager and a pen and paper. Otherwise, I was totally ill-equipped, particularly given the imminent yomp across coastal Lincolnshire’s salt-marshes and mudflats.

As I walked out from the car-park towards the mudflats I asked an elderly couple coming the other way whether ‘it’ had been relocated. The answer was in the negative, and he explained that birders were fanning out across the flats looking for it.

As I got further out, I could see what he meant, because away in the distance to the south I could see 20 – 30 birders spread across the beach like tiny matchstick figures.

I made my way towards them, not particularly quickly, but as I did so it became apparent that the scattered wanderings were slowly beginning to coalesce at one point. That was enough for me, and so the pace of my walking increased. After 20 – 25 minutes I was with the crowd and able to pick the target out, just, with my binoculars. The assembled gallery was now c.30 strong and ranged in a loose curve around the wader flock at c.50 – 60 m range.

Considerations of light and wind direction came into it, but despite this I had plumped for a position centrally within the gallery, looking south and with a very strong cross-wind.

However, these were relatively minor considerations given that by chance I had positioned myself to a birder who was very generous with his ‘scope. I had been looking at the bird with my binoculars, finding it relatively easy to pick out, owing to its stance and relatively pale plumage, when he tapped me on my arm, and invited me to use his ‘scope.

He had obviously realised my predicament and as such exercised his Yorkshire generosity by offering me the frequent use of his ‘scope. And what a ‘scope it was! It was Kowa TSN fluorite ‘scope, which gave stunning clarity despite the difficult viewing conditions. It was so windy that soon after this arrangement commenced two adjacent ‘scopes and tripods blew over and fell into the estuarine sediments!

The bird was reasonably close, but due to the proximity of the ranged birders and the windy conditions, the accompanying Ringed Plovers and Dunlins were somewhat flighty. I was relatively easily able to follow the sand plovers’ movements with my bins, but embarrassingly it was sometimes a struggle identifying its’ companion species in terms of giving directions once the bird had moved. A prominent ‘breast-on’ Ringed Plover thus became a Lapwing as all the waders looked dark in the light conditions and size / scale was not immediately apparent.

Anyway, my directions to the sand plover in terms of it being ‘next to the Lapwing’ caused mutterings from to young lads next to me. Shortly afterwards, when I explained to my ‘scope companion that I was working on a Project in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, and as yet hadn’t seen the Caspian, let alone birds in that region such as Lesser Sand Plover, the murmurings started again, I assume because they made the assumption I was getting confused with Caspian Plover. The old birding aggression welled up, but fortunately I quelled it and concentrated on the bird.

The views through the ‘borrowed’ ‘scope got better and better, and as the bird moved around us, so the light got better and the sand plover got closer. By now we were working in tandem, my companion would use his ‘scope for a few minutes whilst I used my bins and attempted to sketch the bird, and then I would have a look at it through his ‘scope for a minute or so. After some 15 – 20 minutes of this, someone nearby called the ‘scope owner by name, and after a delayed reaction caused by lack of memory power and the photo-reactive glasses he was wearing I realised I knew him. It was Kris from Yorkshire who I had last met when I gave him a lift on North Uist when Graham and I had twitched the Long-tailed Shrike! He was mightily impressed that we should met up again like this and so the craich was even better, culminating in me being given a sausage butty shortly before they left! We exchanged contact details and then said our goodbyes and they departed, apparently because my ‘scope sharing mate wanted to go back to Potteric Carr where he was warden to gloat to one of his colleagues about seeing the Lesser Sand Plover!

Anyway, back to the bird and birding.

I readjusted my position, and once again fortuitously struck lucky by inadvertently standing next to another birder willing to share his very good ‘scope with me. This time he was from my side of the Pennines, but equally keen to share the experience. He had his tripod set as low as possible and despite having to kneel down in the silty-sands of the beach to view, this and the fact that the bird was closer than ever meant that the views were very good.

More birders had drifted away by now, and perhaps for this reason the waders (and the sand plover in particular) were as close as they had been throughout my stay. I took full advantage of another generous Northern birder and used his ‘scope to get my best views. During this time the bird moved to within 20 m of the nearest small group of birders / photographers / digiscopers.

I decided that that was the place to be and moved from my position to theirs, helped by the fact that an absolutely massive bloke was doing the same and shielded me totally from view. Once there, I obviously got the best binocular views I had.

As a rain shower appeared to be heading our way, fast, I decided to quit whilst I was ahead, and so walked back to the Rimac car-park a very happy birder. I was thrilled to have re-discovered ‘spontaneous’ twitching and so enjoyed the walk through interesting coastal habitats all the more recounting the day’s events as I went.

The bird was obviously very reminiscent of the two previous Greater Sand Plovers I had seen, certainly in terms of structure, shape and plumage. However, it also had certain, subtle but definite characteristics which made it stand out as a ‘Lesser’.

Firstly, my binocular views. The bird was obviously bigger and bulkier than the accompanying Ringed Plovers and could be easily picked out by a combination of this appearance and its paler plumage. Obviously, my binocular views were best for picking out jizz-related characteristics. Besides the size and structure, I noted that the bird appeared front-heavy, and as a consequence appeared to, ‘totter forwards a few paces before stopping and pecking at the sand’. This pattern of movement was constant, apart from when it occasionally flew a few tens of metres. It was apparent that there was some truth in the adage about three or four paces compared to the Greater Sand Plovers eight or nine or so. In flight it again was an obvious plover, with a broadish white wing-bar showing in flight as it wheeled around from one place to the next. Also apparent with binoculars was the predominance of white plumage at the stubby looking rear-end of what was a dumpy looking bird. The legs were long and apparently black, and even at this range the bill looked like a far more delicate affair than that of the preceding Greater Sand Plovers. With such views it was difficult to make out any of the subtleties of its plumage, beyond the white underparts, separated by an orangey breast band and a darker face mask around the eye and apparently between the eye and bill. The upperparts were a light grey-brown.

With the borrowed ‘scopes (and particularly the second one when the bird was closer) at least some of the subtleties of the plumage and the Lesser v. Greater Sand Plover i.d. criteria could be discerned. The orange breast band was clearly defined at its interface with the white throat patch but merged into the white belly. Equally, the throat patch had a clearly defined edge where it reached the facial pattern. This comprised an ‘eye-shadow’ effect mask, an off white supercilium and an otherwise light dull grey-brown cheek patch and cap. There was some darker feathering around and, in particular, in front of the eye but the ‘mask’ was a deceptively variable feature. The upperparts were all grey brown and relatively uniform, although there was an apparent darker line caused by the structure of the folded wing, approximating to the edge of the scapulars and inner wing coverts. The upperparts feathers appeared old and evenly worn. The folded flight feathers appeared slightly darker, in particular, the leading edge of the visible primaries. Similarly, the darker tip to the tail was often visible against the pure white undertail coverts / outer tail feathers. The legs, bill and eye were all black. The legs were long-looking in comparison to Ringed Plover, and the upper tarsus was apparent, as was a bulge at the leg-joint. However, the birds front-heavy pot-bellied appearance made it appear to have not particularly long legs. The bill was Ringed Plover like, rather than Grey Plover like as with Greater Sand Plover.

In flight the wing-bar was obvious, and was broad and parallel on the inner wing, whilst it tapered to a point on the outer wing. As such, it was far more obvious on the inner wing. No indication of feet overlapping the tail could be discerned from the flight views obtained. The tail pattern was not recorded.

Overall, it was a far more ‘delicate’ bird than the more robust looking Greater Sand Plovers I have seen. It was reminiscent of one of the Nearctic plover species (Piping Plover?) in terms of size, structure and appearance. A cracking bird!  

Lesser Sand Plover, Rimac, Lincolnshire, May 2002 (all photographs credited to Graham Catley).

American Herring Gull – Garrygall, Barra, Outer Hebrides, 17^th April 2016

Calum Scott and I had been ‘planning’ a night out for a catch-up over some beers forever, and it had just never happened. I had texted him on Tuesday the 5th April 2016, soon after returning from my trip to North Uist for the Gyr Falcon, to chase him up about the same, and also to enquire whether he had any plans to go to see the American Herring Gull and White-billed Diver on Barra.

For what were to become understandable reasons (he and his Dad had been struggling with his Mum’s ill-health) Calum didn’t respond to my text, or at least not until Thursday the 14th April, when he texted me asking whether I, ‘fancied that beer tonight’.

As I was driving back from a couple of days away, involving meetings in both Inverness and at SNH Battleby, near Perth, I failed to respond.

Also, as, due to my travels I was tired, I intended having my tea and then ‘phoning Calum to decline his kind offer, but propose we do so on another occasion. However, just as I was sitting down to my tea Calum ‘phoned me. I explained my situation and he agreed that he wouldn’t be too keen to go out under similar circumstances. However, he then suggested he was making plans to go to Barra, and, in effect, I invited myself along. Calum explained the complications with the CalMac ferries and also indicated he had made arrangements with friends to stay with them on the island, so he indicated that he would have to check out that they were okay with an extra guest.

So, all of a sudden, it looked quite likely I was off on another Hebridean twitch! Calum and I liaised over the next day or so, and we both monitored the CalMac website about sailing times. Finally it was resolved that we would catch the Saturday sailing at around 13:00, enabling a sensible departure from Edinburgh for Oban. Also, Calum informed me that he had successfully negotiated with Bruce and Kathy Taylor for an extra guest...... .

Game on! Calum picked me up at just after 09:00 on Saturday the 16th April, and we then had an uneventful journey to Oban, where we parked up, walked to the ferry terminal, purchased our ferry tickets and then lunched on the front in Oban having visited the ‘seafood shack’ near the ferry terminal.

We also walked to the Tesco's store and service station and purchased a large amount of bottled beer and wine (plus a 5 litre fuel plastic storage can for Bruce) and then returned to the ferry terminal, before we took turns to go back to Calum’s car and bring our rucksacks back. Finally, we had both assembled everything we were taking with us to Barra, and so we then moved into the waiting lounge area before we finally boarded to Clansman.

The crossing from Oban to Castlebay, like the journey from Edinburgh to Oban, was large uneventful; whilst on deck Calum and I managed a White-tailed Eagle in the Sound of Mull and a Great Skua and Manx Shearwaters in The Minch, plus a couple of bottles each of very good beer from Colonsay, and whilst not on deck we managed a meal each in the restaurant.... . But all in all, it was ‘uneventful’... . ‘twas though, enjoyable, especially chatting to Calum and watching Barra appear in the distance and then come ever close..... .

Once the Clansman had moored, we loaded ourselves up, and disembarked, to be greeted by Bruce on the harbour-side. We loaded up the car, and then journeyed around the west side of the island and north to Eoligarry. The strategy was to check out places such as Allasdale for the American Herring Gull on the way north, and then to try for the White-billed Diver off Eoligarry ferry.

As it happened, we were unsuccessful in both cases, so we returned south to Breivig and the home of Bruce and Kathy, where we were welcomed in by Kathy and then settled in for a very convivial evening of chatting, drinking beer and wine and eating nibbles.

The following morning, having breakfasted, we journeyed south to Garrygall and (unsuccessfully) looked for the gull there, before we again continued around the west side of the island, stopping off at various places including Allasdale, where we visited the Glaucous Gull and then north to Eoligarry. Here this time, we successfully located the White-billed Diver, a Scottish tick for me. We then returned south and checked out Aird Mhor (for old times’ sake!) and then returned to Garrygall.

This time we were successful, as various Herring Gulls were hanging around the crofts there, and were accompanied by the American Herring Gull.

We watched it over the course of the next couple of hours (either side of our scheduled visit to the Co-op in Castlebay) as it effortless hung in the wind over the road and crofts, and occasionally landed on the rocky outcrops in the nearby fields.

Despite my now increasing problems with streaming eyes (I had ‘itchy’ eyes before I set off with Calum and it would appear, with hindsight, that the previous owner of Bruce and Kathy’s place had kept cats and I had what in effect, was an allergic reaction to the cat hair that probably remained) meaning I was struggling with the bright light, it rapidly became easy to pick out amongst the other gulls when in flight (though less so when on the ground).

In flight it was obviously structurally – in terms of size and shape – identical to the rest of the Herring Gulls present. However, even in the relatively bright light through streaming eyes, it was invariably ‘obvious’ as the darkest bird and was, as suggested, ‘easy’ to pick out.

In flight, as can be seen from my attempted flight shot, it had very dark (and almost uniformly so) under-wings, and a dark under-tail, together with ‘dusky’ dark under-parts, contrasting with a paler head. It also had an all dark bill. As a result, I even (stretching a point) invoked Heerman’s Gull...... .

When on the ground (and it did occasionally land and provide the chance of ‘scope views) its appearance was strangely changeable. At times it similarly appeared very dark, but equally, at other times was occasionally passed off as a 1st winter Herring Gull; its appearance was obviously variable depending on the way it was affected by light and shade, its stance, etc.. But more generally, it was a brute, sometimes appearing particularly large-headed and heavily-billed.

It had a pale head (with a faint darker ‘mask’) and a darker shawl or necklace. Its bill was all dark with perhaps a hint of a paler base. The eye was dark too. The under-parts were dusky dark and ‘smudgy’. There was dark barring on the lower belly and under-tail. The tail was all dark. The primaries were also all dark, as were the bunched tertials. The wing coverts were spangled dirty off- white with darker brown centres, and two bands comprising feathers of different ages / shades / states of coverts were apparent.

A stonking bird – very informative and instructive, and not at all a dodgy Herring Gull half-a-tick....... .

 Hume’s Warbler – Denburn Wood, Crail, Fife, 7^th November 2000

A sketch of the Hume's Warbler attempting and failing to capture just how incredibly wet and dark it was when it gave itself up.

My loan pager came good again on the 7th November 2000, just a few days after the epic Long-tailed Shrike twitch. It informed me of the presence of a Hume’s (Yellow-browed) Warbler at Denburn Wood, Crail around about the same time that my ex-, Gillian, arrived back from work and the child-minders with the girls.

I carefully negotiated permission to leave her alone with the girls again and having ‘phoned Graham Clark just in case, I departed at about 14:00. The day was truly evil, continual pouring rain and howling winds making driving ‘exciting’, to say the least. The roads were flooded in places and obstructed by branches, etc., in others. A combination of this, and the more usual tractors and learner drivers, meant that it took a good while to get to Crail and I was convinced that I would dip out as a result, as it was getting very dark by the time I reached the East Neuk reaches of Fife.

But I was buoyed up by my recent successes and consoled myself with the maxim, “If you don’t buy a ticket, you can’t win the raffle,” (or perhaps that should be the lottery).

Finally, at 15:20 I arrived at the gates of the church, and quickly gathered up my binoculars, coat, etc.. The light was very poor, and the weather was still wild, so I was not overly confident. I rushed through the graveyard and into the Denburn Wood valley and was relieved to see a small group of birders on one of the paths within the wood. Surely, they weren’t on it?

I quickly made my way to them and was ushered over as indeed they were on it. Almost instantly on arrival I was put onto the bird as it erratically worked through some low cover beyond the trees in the valley floor. Viewing conditions were dire as the light was so poor, but at least I was able to get on the bird and be reasonable sure that it was a yellow-browed warbler spp.. Almost as soon as I had seen the bird moved on, and despite my attempts to relocate it further up the valley where I guessed it might be moving to, I failed.

I thought I would be thwarted by the continuing deterioration in conditions, as my views had not been good enough to allow my conscience to count it. However, after a brief interlude during which the bird was ‘lost’, it was relocated and this time gave me vital (if brief) good views as it moved through low cover on the other side of the valley. It was below us as we stood on one of the paths and in relatively sparse cover that included a brash pile and two spindly alders. These views were indeed vital because the bird was not seen again that day.

Particularly when in the brash pile and the two spindly alders I was able to get views good enough to make something of a knee-jerk comparison to Yellow-browed Warbler. Compared to Yellow-browed Warbler it was apparently anaemic – basically like the difference between Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff. I was not able to examine the details of the plumage, etc., in any great detail, but I did see that the wing coverts, tertials, etc., were ‘less contrasty’ and that the legs and bills were darker than those of Yellow-browed Warbler.

I was extremely lucky to see this bird, and another tick, so soon after the Long-tailed Shrike twitch, and I also saw Angus Murray, Alan Lauder, etc., before leaving

The bird was still there the following day but was replaced by a Yellow-browed Warbler soon afterwards, leading to some mild confusion!    

I've not been able to locate any images of the Denburn Wood, Crail, Hume's Warbler from November 2000, so, for no reason other than it being a superb image, here's one of a bird at Doi Pha Hom Pok National Park - Ban Luang Resort on Doi Angkhang, Chiang Mai, Thailand taken on the  28th January 2017 (photograph credited to Natthaphat Chotjuckditku).