Our work this afternoon was interupted for a while as we watched a huge flock of Lapwings [Vanellus vanellus] Vanneau huppé and Golden Plovers [Pluvialis apricaria] Pluvier doré flying around, up and down this bit of the valley.
There are no pictures...
too busy watching....
and, when they settled, they were too distant for all but the 'scope...
and with the poor light...
impossible.
But I can have a go at describing what we saw...
Some large flocks of Lapwings gradually melded into one huge 'committee'...
silently swooping and wheeling around us.
Occasionally, like many committees...
they would split into smaller groups that seemed to want to go in different directions.
They would pick up other small bands that were coming in from either side of the valley.
They swooped and turned....
glided...
flapped around...
dived through the group next to them...
and formed back up again.
The flock seemed to grow and grow....
At that point...
amongst the cloud of swirling birds appeared a small flock of slightly smaller, narrow-winged waders...
these joined in with the swooping, diving, turning Lapwings.
All were semi-sillhoutted against a grey sky but we were pretty sure they'd be Golden Plover.
Then a few of the joint flock started to get lower and lower...
as if about to land...
and then driven by the committee urge they lifted again...
swirling to confuse raptors...
and us!
Time after time they repeated this... the sight of more than five hundred swirling waders is something to be marvelled at.
Then suddenly, they began to settle in the field next door....
spiralling down...
the spiral cloud getting denser as they descended....
all down, they all rose again and spiraled down...
and again and again!
Eventually they calmed down...
they'd decided to feed...
I went and got the big 'scope.
Focused the 'scope onto the flock and confirmed that the other waders were indeed Golden Plover, their golden plumage clear and , for the conditions, bright...
then, as one, they all rose...
but we'd already seen that they weren't feeding.
They'd been just standing there...
facing into the wind...
ready for take-off.
Again, they didn't go far....
and soon settled again.
This happened a couple more times before they settled properly...
and then more waders, both Lapwing and Golden Plover, appeared...
and also spiralled down to join them.
Although it was early, they were probably settling down to roost.
All in all, there must have been over 500 Lapwing and about half that number of Golden Plover settled in the field and with any luck, they'll still be here tomorrow morning having an early feed!
The last time we saw them in this number was north of Paris in October 2005... we wrote about them here.
24-11-2012 Update.... they'd gone!
4 comments:
Lovey descriptive post.
I hope you have the camera ready in case they come tomorrow.
I had the camera ready this morning, but they'd already left... currently I am watching four young Coypu feeding on grass and roots on the opposite bank of the bief.
There were a good number of them when we visited but by your descriptive they must have increased quite alot. Where will they have gone?
Update, they came back... they'd probably been up the top on the "flatlands", between the valleys... a further post this evening will tell more.
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