The sight of a flock of Golden Plovers circling the tops of the high Pennines in spring tells a complex story ... many of these birds will be on their way to breeding grounds in Northern Scandinavia and beyond ... a single Dunlin was associating losely with this flock and may also have been bound for more northerly latitudes ...
... some of the birds showed black bellies while others seemed to be still in winter plumage ...
... and other birds showed signs of establishing territories ...
... in one of the remote valleys that cut into the high Pennine massif a Ring Ouzel was already singing from a bare tree on the last day of March ...
... early April saw the first Cuckoos in some lower Pennine valleys while the surrounding vegetation still had very much of a flavour of winter ...
... Ravens are famously early breeders and this bird seems to be revelling in the clear blue skies above its breeding site ...
... and nearby a female Wheatear fed in a favoured spot lower down the valley ...
... but back on the high tops Skylarks sang and one bird that was close to a regular Dunlin breeding area incorporated some mimicry of Dunlin in its song ... the Skylarks that were distant from this area did not incorporate Dunlin mimicry ...
... here's a section of the song ... with the Dunlin mimic just left of centre at 4.5 to 5.5 seconds ...
.jpg)
... and here it is magnified ...
.jpg)
... on the Solway plain spring brought more interest ... Wood Sandpiper ..
... and Whimbrel always brighten any day ...
... and May is the month when migrant Ringed Plovers move through the country as they head for their northerly breeding grounds ...
... these 'Tundra types' are characterised by their darker mantle shade, smaller bill, reduced while supercilium and narrower neck band ... they possibly belong to the race C.h.psammodromus which ringing data have shown to have occurred in Cumbria.
No comments:
Post a Comment