(NH) Heres the reveal shot for yesterdays Whoami, along with the original photo for reference: both were taken by our very own Dick Coombes just a few days ago in Co. Wicklow. Its a Dotterel: well done if you got it right. So, what clues did we have to go on? Well, habitat was the first one. We could clearly see heather and jagged rocks, which suggests an upland bog or heathland-type habitat. We couldnt see too much of the bird itself: just the back of its head and neck and the top of its mantle (i.e., upper back). We could tell that it has rather large, dark eyes that are visible even from a rear view, which in turn means that the bird must have excellent, almost 360 degree vision. This suggests that it has evolved to spend a lot of time on the ground and is probably most comfortable there, rather than, say, perched in a tree or soaring high in the sky. We could see that the bird has a dark, pale spangled mantle, a paler, more greyish nape and a contrasting dark crown, flecked with buff. Probably its most striking feature, however, is the pale V-shape on the back of the head, formed by the extension of the broad pale supercillia (i.e., those obvious stripes running just above the birds eyes). Not many Irish birds show a pattern like this on the back of the head: indeed, the only two candidates that would show it so strongly are Dotterel and Woodlark. Our birds mantle and crown are too dark for it to be a Woodlark, so Dotterel it must be. Dotterels are really interesting birds. They are members of the plover family (and are therefore waders), but unlike most waders they spend little time around water and prefer remote upland heathland and bogs, as well as Arctic tundra. They (like the phalaropes) also differ from most other waders in that the female is the more brightly coloured and territorial of the pair, and that it is the male that carries out most of the incubation and takes care of the chicks. Dotterel dont (as far as we know) breed in Ireland, though they do nest in Scotland and Scandinavia and regularly pass through Ireland on migration. They can be hard to see here, however, due to the fact they they favour remote mountaintops, though they do sometimes turn up in more birder-friendly locations too. I have no doubt that they are significantly under-recorded in this country, given the fact that so few of our mountaintop habitats are visited by birders at the right time of year. They also tend to be remarkably tame, so people can walk right past them without ever noticing them: shier birds would tend to fly up and call, ironically making them much easier to find. This particular individual has been hanging around near the summit of Maulin Mountain in Co. Wicklow for the past week or so, and it has posed very obligingly for lots of photographers.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 11:30:33 +0000
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