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GREY-HEADED LAPWING AT LOW NEWTON - FIRST FOR BRITAIN

Mayday Mayday! Grey-headed Lapwing at Low Newton scrapes, Northumberland 1 May 2023.

‘There are some birds you just can’t say no to’ Ken Shaw. This was another. Mark Varley and I were very late to the party but happily the Bank Holiday roads were clear of traffic and we made good progress to Low Newton, where the Grey-headed Lapwing was still present by a small pool behind the avocet colony. Repeat avocet colony! There’s a sentence that would have been unthinkable when I first visited this lovely spot on the Northumberland coast on 16 May 1981. I see from my notebook that I saw two new birds here on that day – Little Gull and Common Stonechat. I couldn’t imagine what I would be watching here 42 years later! 8000km from home Grey-headed Lapwing is one of the most extreme vagrants that I’ve seen in the UK, and closest I’d seen before today was Kaziranga in Assam. It looked to be feeding in the damp grass between the two pools of Gary Woodburn, the finder’s scrape just behind the village. Patting the ground with its feet, like gulls do. It got some hassle from the avocets so I will be surprised if it settles here for long. As we watched it, Sand Martins skimmed the water’s surface, and a Yellow Wagtail was among the Pied Wagtails on the near edge of the pool. Shelduck, Gadwall and shoveler were also in residence, what a terrific little place! Some familiar faces included Adam Archer and Tony Barter on their day tour of the England. This morning they were watching Forster’s Tern on Brownsea Island, Poole Harbour!!! Lee Evans also rolled up before sunset. However, things are not all well in Northumberland, we couldn’t find a single chippy open in Seahouses after 8 o’clock and had to make do with a kebab instead. What is this country coming to?

Grey-headed Lapwing’s breeding range is actually to the east of Mongolia! Handbook of the Birds of the World (vol. 3) published by Lynx Editions

No. 15. Grey-headed Lapwing is a big lapwing! It does rather stand out! Handbook of the Birds of the World (vol. 3) published by Lynx Editions

My 1981 diary excerpt

Falling asleep at the scope! Adam Archer and Tony Barter’s UK day tour! No lifer too far!

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ROOF OF THE WORLD SANDGROUSE

Tibetan Sandgrouse on the Kalang Tar Tar 5330m ASL, southeast Ladakh, March 2023 (Mike Watson)

Tucked away in a far-flung corner of northwest India lies the newly created Union Territory of Ladakh. It is a winter mountain island, as all roads to it are blocked by snow until late into the spring and when you take off in Delhi you might as well be heading into outer space towards another planet. That’s how it feels to descend through the clouds and enter a world of endless snowy Himalayan peaks. Even the Indus Valley has an other-worldly feel to it, the barren high altitude mountain desert landscape, Leh’s spartan military air base and then the outdoor-gear-clad locals in the airport would not look out-of-place in Star Wars. Following the sacred River Indus upstream, eventually the jagged uplifted peaks give way to a more open landscape of rolling hills, deceptively high and it is sometimes easy to forget this when stepping out of the vehicle, until you breathe the thin air of course.

Tibetan Sandgrouse, shuffling across the barren mountain desert landscape foraging for tiny seeds (Mike Watson)

To a birder (and mammal enthusiast) everything with the word Tibetan in its name is interesting, and none more so than the sandgrouse. It is also one of the highest dwelling bird species, quite at home at more than 5000m ASL. This time we were lucky to see a flock of 42 birds at 5330m! They flew over, calling while we were watching a small group of Tibetan Gazelles on the Kalang Tar Tar, a very special high grassland on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, near the village of Hanle in southeast Ladakh. The weather changes quickly up in the clouds, one minute the sun is shining, and the next snowflakes fill the air. In winter there is not much evidence of grass, unless you look closely at the ground, but herbivores like the gazelles and sandgrouse still manage to eke out a living up here. In fact, Ladakh is probably the easiest place in the world to see the latter, there’s even no need to leave the vehicle unless you want to get closer. Foraging for tiny seeds, the sandgrouse shuffled across the high-altitude desert and were, as usual, remarkably confiding for birds of their family. A spiritual experience indeed.

Tibetan Sandgrouse - words of advice, always approach from downslope, this has worked for me so far (Mike Watson)

Another ‘road less-travelled’ on the Kalang Tar Tar (Mike Watson)

The Tibetan Plateau, where the deep blue sky is almost black (Mike Watson)

The rolling landscape of the Kalang Tar Tar, it is easy to forget you are up at over 5000m ASL here (Mike Watson)

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MAASAI MARA SERVAL

Serval, Pose Plains, Maasai Mara, August 2022

Card No. 15 in the Brooke Bond ‘African Wild Life’ series, first published in 1962 was the Serval. Illustrated and described by Charles F Tunnicliffe it is a truly beautiful animal. With legs, even more out of proportion than Cheetah, in fact the longest of any cat compared to its body size that give it a stilted appearance. It shares a finely spotted coat too, ‘at one time much in favour with native chiefs for mantles, and even today its fur is used for that purpose by the European furriers’ wrote Tunnicliffe 60 years ago. When photographing wildlife I am often thinking of an image that looks like one of his tea card paintings - I might just have what I was looking for!

We had a couple of Serval encounters on the recent Wild Images Maasai Mara tour. The first was in very harsh late morning light and very nice, but it was more of a watching experience as it hunted in a sea of grass, so typical of the Mara plains. As we waited for it to show in the open, more safari vehicles arrived and made viewing space tricky and backgrounds far from ideal, so we abandoned it. Our next meeting with the ‘Delicate Cat’ was late one afternoon at sunset, when we received a call from our lodge’s other vehicles that a Serval was not far away. This time we had it completely to ourselves for about half an hour, on the prowl in the long grass, striking various poses and crucially a few times without a mesh of grass stems across its face as so often is the way. The low light was actually really nice and the Canon R5 performed. FAB-U-LOUS!

Thanks to my awesome Maasai driver guide Tinka Jackson, without whose expert help these photos would not have been possible.

Brooke Bond Tea Card no. #15, African Wild Life 1962 by Charles F. Tunnicliffe

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KELP GULL AT GRAFHAM WATER - first for Britain

Kelp Gull (third calendar year), Grafham Water, Cambs - the first for Britain

THE LEAST INSPIRING MEGA RARITY I’ve seen is how some people have described the Kelp Gull at Grafham Water but for me it’s been a very interesting ID lesson. I wonder how many of these have passed in the crowds of black-backed gulls in the past and I half expect that this one will eventually get gazumped from its first for Britain status. It was nothing if not very co-operative for a large gull, on view all the time along the dam wall of Grafham Water on the hot and sunny afternoon I visited it. A quick whizz through its identification features: jet eye; bulbous-ended bill; flat-headed profile (at times); black mantle and long jade(?) legs was all news to me having only seen them in South Africa and Argentina, where there is much else of more interest to look at. It loafed around in the water and later on the railings of the walkway to the valve tower. Aged as a third calendar year, it is in active moult with the six, old outer primaries retained and the inner ones regrowing. With so few gulls present it was also nice to see such a variety - Great Black-backed, Lesser Black-backed, Herring, Yellow-legged (2, one even giving the wings-closed long call) and Black-headed as well as the Kelp Gull all standing helpfully in line in a ready-made ID collage on the railings. Also here were five or six Yellow Wagtails and a few Common Terns. The last (and only) time I was here, was way back in the 80s for a Leach’s Petrel. It was unrecognisable with a bank of solar panels below the dam wall and tall trees all around the reservoir.

The bill can look really massive at times, especially when foreshortened

Six old, outer primaries with adult-type inner primaries already growing

Looking flat-headed at times.

Gasping for air in the heat

Jade legs?

Not the most inspiring location, the dam wall at Grafham Water.

Only fools and English men?

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