Dotterels in Wiltshire 5th May 2019

Sunday dawned clear and soon it was sunny but still unseasonably cold. I wanted to go birding. It was too nice to lay in bed but I was in two minds where to go as I loaded my birding gear into the car at just after 6am. Should I go to Otmoor our local  RSPB reserve to see ten species of commoner warblers or should I make the journey of just over an hour to a far flung field near Castle Combe in deepest Wiltshire, where three Dotterels were currently resting after their long migration from North Africa and before heading further northwards to their breeding grounds?

I decided to go for the Dotterels. They are such nice birds and are not so easy to see in England, whilst finding them in Scotland will inevitably entail an energetic climb to where they nest at a considerable elevation on remote mountain tops. These three were currently in a farm field at almost sea level, right by a country lane and would entail little effort to see apart from the drive to the location.

The directions on RBA (Rare Bird Alert) stated they were in a ploughed field 2.5 miles west of Castle Combe, west of West Kington and north of Drifton Hill wherever that may be. I decided to head for Drifton Hill and then take a chance on finding the field in question. A drive across rural country on roads virtually free of traffic was a joy, passing through a landscape becoming ever greener, the sharp fresh greens of new growth everywhere you looked, sparkling in the early morning sunshine.

I came to signs for Drifton Hill and the Satnav told me to turn onto a small road on my left. I went up a rise, passing one car parked by a gate but it did not look like a birder's car. I carried on as the road narrowed and then, coming round a bend saw a long straight stretch of road  before me with, in the middle distance, a large barn by the side of it and a number of cars parked along the verge. They had to be birder's cars and sure enough, beyond the cars, I could see a handful of birders standing on a grass verge and looking into a field on the other side of the narrow road. I had found the field.

It was wide, open, monoculture farmland around here. Huge uninteresting farm fields stretched away into a flat unremarkable distance. The Dotterel field was separated from the road by a traditional low stone wall that had long fallen into disrepair.

The Dotterel Field

I parked the car on the verge, got my stuff together and walked a hundred metres down the road to the field and two birders pointed to the three Dotterels standing motionless in the field, a little distance in from the road and well camouflaged in the midst of the emerging shoots by their earth coloured upperparts

It was quiet at this early time, just a Skylark singing above me and not one vehicle  came along the road  to bother us for the first thirty minutes.

The bright plumaged Dotterel and almost certainly a female

As is the way of their kind the Dotterels spent a lot of time standing about doing nothing. In particular, one looked to be asleep but then one started to move and this  roused the other two into moving in short runs, erratically and haltingly, across the furrows of the newly emerging crop. One was in bright plumage but the other two were much less colourful, dowdy and scruffy looking in comparison. Could the bright individual be a female, as the plumage of the two sexes is reversed and the female Dotterel is always the more colourful. Could the other two be males or were they two birds, sex unknown, still moulting? I think it may be the former but I could easily be wrong.

The first duller plumaged Dotterel

The other duller plumaged Dotterel

I stood for an hour in the road, watching as the Dotterels moved in a stop start, typical plover action, along and across the furrows of the field, always remaining in reasonably close contact with each other.

A large pick up vehicle came down the lane towing a horsebox. It came to a halt beside me and the lady driver enquired of me what were we looking at and I told her about the Dotterel in the field. She was delighted and told me the field belonged to the farm which she and her husband owned.

A little bit of public relations never does any harm and we both were the better for the experience. The Dotterels meanwhile, carried on their halting progress across the field, never moving far from their original location.

The Skylark continued to soar above us and in the distance I could hear a Corn Bunting singing his jangling refrain to the wind. The Dotterels stopped moving and hunched into repose.

I left it at that.