Bearded Vulture & Pacific Golden Plover Away Days

                                 8th  August 2020  :  Crowden in Derbyshire  

                                              

Bearded Vulture imm ♀

On the 8th August i paid homage to the long staying Bearded Vulture at Crowden in Derbyshire, a long uneventful journey saw RR, AE & myself arrive around 8.30am and the BV was showing distantly on rocks from the layby.

I have seen some amazing photos of this bird but sadly it remained distant all morning so not lucky with the camera this time.

However we had some amazing distant flight views as it was being mobbed first by a Common Buzzard which gave us great size comparisons and later 4 Kestrels joined forces in mobbing the Bearded Vulture and they looked like swallows chasing after a Buzzard for scale of the BV size.

Digi scope photo of the Bearded Vulture.

There has been alot of debate about this birds origin and is it countable as a wild bird or not as it is presumed wild bred from reintroduced but not self-sustaining population in the Alps, which i think makes this a 2nd generation bird ???

Either way it's an amazing bird to see in all it's undeniable glory and worth a trip as who knows how long it will stick around for or when we will see one again in this country.

17th August 2020  :   Boulmer in Northumberland

Pacific Golden Plover 

Once again i teamed up with RR & AE and this time we headed for Boulmer in Northumberland, another long uneventful journey and as we got closer to the site the weather got worse , rain turned into heavy rain plus there had been no news (unsurprisingly) of the PGP !!

We started our quest to find the PGP, with rough directions we took from RBA & BG from the  previous days sightings and without any local knowledge , we checked every bit of beach until eventually RR picked out the Pacific Golden Plover some way off near  Longhoughton Steel.

By this time the rain water was running of us , however the views of this superb wader were amazing as it just kept coming  closer & closer, we saw it wing stretch a couple of times where you could easily see the grey underwings, the long legs seemed very long almost Stilt like.

Black undertail coverts.

PGP note the very long legs.

This was a new bird for both RR & AE and a very much welcome year tick for me , we also saw 2 Adult & 3 juv Roseate Terns (1st juv Roseate Terns i have seen) plus Fulmar, Kittiwake,Gannet & Eider were all seen close in.