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 half hour frantic drive and a quick lift down the road from the carpark 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 birds 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,alongside an additional record for the 'Greater WP' at Salalah,Oman,in January 2012.
A few eyebrows were raised over the bird's provenance has 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 who I hadn't seen in years!A two tick weekend I don't say that very often😎
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