cliftonbirding: Pendle Plovers

Monday 5 May 2014

Pendle Plovers

I was out with Mike Williams on Sunday 4th and as usual all the mid-week rarities had cleared out leaving nothing for the weekend however after seeing some nice photos of Dotterel from Pendle Hill on the Internet accompanied by the magical comment “very approachable” I thought thats what we can do. The weather was unfortunately worse than the forecast I’d seen and there was a fair bit of rain on the way over but it had stopped by the time we arrived although there was still low cloud over the peak. It was a hell of a climb, 1600 ft, but after several get my breath back stops we made the top and headed for the Trig Point where close by it was all made worthwhile by the presence of three stunning and “very approachable” Dotterel, two males and a female, it was a shame about the murky weather but they performed well enough although they got flushed by dog walkers several times, by late morning with no sign of a break in the weather and it becoming unbelievably busy we headed back down for lunch, other birds in the area included Red Grouse, Meadow Pipit, Skylark and several Wheatears. We spent the afternoon wandering around Bolton Abbey Woods where we picked up a few year ticks although it was relatively quiet, a fair few Pied Flycatchers were present and we managed a single Redstart but no Wood Warblers, half a dozen Mandarins were on the river, two Common Sandpipers flew past and both Dippers and Grey Wags were attending nests on Barden Bridge. As we headed back to the car a Buzzard was up over a distant ridge then my attention was drawn to a white bird on the other side of the river, it proved to be a leucistic Mistle Thrush, very intriguing.