Eurasian Dotterel (female), Pendle Hill, 7 May 2021 CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX
IT’S DOTTEREL TIME AGAIN ON PENDLE! The female first seen on Wednesday was reported again by Ribchester birding pal Phil Larkin early this morning by the path to the trig point and happily it was still present when I got there. The dark feathers in the white breast band clearly match those in Mark Carter’s photo of the 5 May bird on the Lancashire Birding Facebook page. Thanks a lot to Phil who kept tabs on it and waited for me. I owe him a beer! I’ve been saying this for a while that dotties continue to become scarcer and this is only the second on Pendle this spring, an unthinkable state of affairs by 7 May when I first moved to East Lancs in 2005. Like many birds that breed in marginal climatic zones, like on mountain tops in the case of dotterel, its future is not bright, so birders would do well to see them while they still can. This one was bomb-proof and approached me within the minimum focusing distance (5m) several times. Lone birds are often much tamer than groups or ‘trips’ as they are known and it was fabulous to be the only person watching it from time to time. Several passers-by enjoyed it too (after all it is on the interpretive sign by the main gate to the hill at Pendleside) including a group of ‘Public Services’ students from Blackburn College. I have no idea what that course entails but watching a dotterel seems like worthwhile subject matter. I left it where Phil had found it, as a hail shower piled in from the north but was amazed to learn later that birders that I passed on my way down couldn’t refind it. Happily it was still there later in the evening sunshine so presumably it had just hunkered down for a while during the bad weather?