Tuesday 4 May 2010

Apparent PACIFIC GOLDEN PLOVER pitches down briefly in London











This apparent PACIFIC GOLDEN PLOVER in full breeding plumage flew over Beddington Sewage Farm (Surrey) at 0830 hours (Johnny Allan, Peter Alfrey, et al) on Sunday morning and was then relocated by Wendy at Barnes WWT Wetland Centre less than an hour later, where it resided on a shingle island for just over an hour before being flushed by territorial Lapwings at 1037 and flew high west. As you can see from Andrew Moon's images above, an interesting individual with unusually excessive black on the lower underparts and flanks, but its long tibia, toe extension beyond the tail and relatively short primary extension beyond the exposed tertials, certainly implicate fulva, and most convincingly the fact that it is in such spanking and advanced breeding plumage (dominica AGP develops such summer attire several weeks later than its close counterpart, generally acquiring such feathering in the last week of May) (Lee G R Evans)