News broke early this morning of a Grey-headed Lapwing discovered at Newton-by-the-Sea, Northumberland, an announcement that immediately sent shockwaves through the British birding community. Fortuitously, I was already north of Warrington when the alert came through, and after a frantic two-and-a-half-hour drive, followed by a timely lift down the road from the car park courtesy of my good friend Dan Pointon, I soon found myself watching the bird.
What a stunning sight it was. Feeding quietly and alone in a sheep-grazed field, the lapwing looked strikingly out of place against the Northumbrian landscape. Its distinctive grey head, contrasting plumage and elegant structure left no doubt that this was something truly special.
The Grey-headed Lapwing Vanellus cinereus is an East Asian wader, breeding across parts of eastern Russia, northeast China and Japan, and wintering primarily in Southeast Asia. Its appearance in Northumberland represents the first British record and only the fourth for the Western Palearctic. Previous occurrences include Turkey in 2018, followed by records in Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands in 2019, and Slovenia in 2021. An additional record from Salalah, Oman, in January 2012 places the species within the wider ‘Greater Western Palearctic’.
In recent years, the species has shown signs of a gradual expansion in its wintering range, both westwards and southwards. This broader pattern is reflected in an increasing number of long-distance vagrancy events, with birds recorded well outside the core range in locations such as Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia and Sri Lanka.
As with any record of this magnitude, questions regarding provenance were raised, and, understandably so concerns I shared myself initially. However, the Grey-headed Lapwing is not a species commonly kept by aviculturists, and its status as a long-distance migrant, combined with an apparent trend towards increasingly westerly movements, lends weight to the likelihood of a natural occurrence. As ever, the record will be assessed in due course.
Regardless, this was a cracking bird to witness and a memorable occasion, made all the better by the chance to catch up with familiar faces I hadn’t seen in years. A two-tick weekend—something I certainly don’t say very often 😎
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