Sociable Plover at Bude marshes. 27th Dec 2020.

 

I caught up with the "Bude marshes" Sociable Plover or Sociable Lapwing this morning. 

 

Probably the same bird that was at Crows an Wra near Lands End a few weeks ago. 

 

Seems to know it's a rarity as loves to hang out in very difficult to photograph places!

 

However a super bird and well done to Mark Worden for finding it hiding in the north of the county.

 

Classed as "Critically endangered", this species breeds on open grassland in Russia and Kazakhstan.

 

These birds migrate south through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, to key wintering sites in Israel, Syria, Eritrea, Sudan and north-west India. 

 

It is a very rare vagrant in western and northern Europe, where it is usually found, as this one, with northern lapwings.

 

 

Peregrine Falcon on a Lapwing "kill". Camel estuary 12th Nov 2020

 

All the birds on the marsh in front of me took to the air as a Peregrine falcon swooped down through them.

Lapwing, Redshank, Godwits & Dunlin all hit the "panic" button.

After a while they all settled back down again and I started checking them out once again until a sideways glance showed a bird on the ground in the marsh to my left.

On raising my binos I saw it was the Peregrine and it was mantling a dead lapwing.

It was at the limit for my lens to be able to reproduce the images at an acceptable quality because the light levels were very low.... it was after 4pm in mid-November!

ISO was at best 2500 and at worst past 12,000 so I wasn't expecting exhibition quality images!

I also tried some video clips as my camera can cope with them better in low light.

Here are a few pics and a video clip as the bird tore apart the Lapwing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5CpJ4k53hE

 

Birds on the River Camel today ...... 29th Jan 2020.

Black-tailed Godwit

A couple of hours spent along the banks of the River Camel yielded a few nice images.

A Black-tailed Godwit had been spending a few weeks upstream of the town bridge along with a dozen or so Lapwings.

Down on the mudflats a Whooper Swan is wintering alongside our resident Mute Swans.

Little Egrets were feeding on the mud as the tide dropped.

Lapwing

 

Mute Swans either side of a Whooper Swan

Black-tailed Godwit

Little Egret

Black-tailed Godwit

Waders at Walmsley sanctuary this morning. 19th Dec 2017.

Redshank

Good numbers of waders at our local reserve this morning.

I spent 5 hours in frosty conditions in my canvas hide in the marsh (one of the privileges of being the warden!).

Lots of Black tailed Godwit (counted at 190 yesterday), Lapwing, Dunlin, also Green Sandpiper, Ruff and numerous wildfowl.


Here are a few.........

Lapwing

Lapwing

Lapwing

Lapwing

 

Black tailed Godwit

Black tailed Godwit

Black tailed Godwit

Black tailed Godwit

Black tailed Godwit

Black tailed Godwit

 

Ruff

Redshank

Grey Heron

Bird flocks at Walmsley

A flock of 66 Black Tailed Godwit were feeding in the meadow beside the road this afternoon.

There were also several hundred Lapwing taking advantage of the lower water levels inside the reserve.

Also present were 3 Green Sandpipers, 5 Pochard, 5 Little Egret, numerous Wigeon, Teal, Shoveler etc. along with many hundreds of Snipe that were showing really well.