News broke this morning that a grey-headed lapwing had been found at Newton-by-the-Sea in Northumberland. Luckily, I was north of Warrington when the news broke, and after a two-and-a-half-hour frantic drive and a quick lift down the road from the car park by my good friend Dan Pointon on site, I was on the bird. What a stunning bird! It looked so out of place, feeding alone in a sheep field!
This East Asian wader represents the first British record and only the fourth for the Western Palearctic, following Turkey in 2018, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands in 2019, and Slovenia in 2021. The species has been expanding its wintering range both west and south in recent years, and other vagrants in recent years have reached Russia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, and Sri Lanka, along with an additional record for the 'Greater WP' at Salalah, Oman, in January 2012.
A few eyebrows were raised over the bird's provenance, which was mine to be honest, but rest assured, this species isn't popular with aviculturists, and the species is a long-distance migrant with an increasingly westerly range, so we will wait and see.
Birders on site
A cracking bird anyway, and good to see some familiar faces whom I hadn't seen in years! A two-tick weekend, I don't say that very often😎
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