A case that demonstrates that Australian twitchers are slow off the
mark in comparison to their UK counterparts ...
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/rare-bird-sends-twitchers-on-a-wild-plover-chase-821129.html
Rare bird sends twitchers on a wild plover chase
By Mark Hughes
Monday, 5 May 2008
The Caspian plover probably did not realise the chaos that would ensue
when, after being blown 2,500 miles off course, the Asian bird decide
to stop off on Fair Isle.
But her brief pitstop on the Scottish island at the end of last week
did not go unnoticed. Just hours after the bird was spotted, two plane-
loads of twitchers were racing to the remote island in a bid to catch
a glimpse of the bird, so rare it has only been spotted in Britain
three times before.
The groups shelled out £4,000 to charter two planes to get them to the
island in the hope of seeing the bird, native to Kazakhstan. But their
efforts were in vain: after landing on Fair Isle – part of the
Shetland Islands – and spending hours scouring the three mile-long
island, the twitchers finally admitted defeat. The Caspian plover had
already gone.
"They were very disappointed but they are used to it, I think," said
Deryk Shaw, a warden at the Fair Isle Bird Observatory.
Dr Jane Reid, a zoologist at Aberdeen University, had been looking for
birds fitted with identity rings on Friday, when she came across the
Caspian plover, a longish-legged bird with a distinctive broad fawn-
grey section across its breast, which separates the white of its
underparts and face.
She reported the sighting to Mr Shaw who went looking for the bird
himself. He added: "By the time I got up there, it was gone. I spent
one-and-a-half hours running around before I found it. You do get a
buzz when you see a new bird."
After confirming the sighting, Mr Shaw reported it to birdwatching
information groups.
Fair Isle, with just 70 residents, is considered Britain's most remote
inhabited island. Famous for its rich bird life, the island has long
been a top destination for twitchers, attracted by the chance to see
many rare species. It is one of the best places in western Europe to
see the Pechora pipit, Lanceolated warbler and Pallas's grasshopper
warbler.
Within hours, two groups of twitchers from Cumbernauld, near Glasgow,
and Inverness had flown nearly 400 miles to the bird-watching haven.
Mr Shaw explained: "Unfortunately, the plover had disappeared by the
time they got here and it hasn't been seen since, so they had to leave
disappointed. The pilots only had limited flying time available, so
they didn't have time to hang about. They were depending on getting
here, sighting the plover and getting back."
But not every twitcher's trip was unfruitful. Mr Shaw added: "Two
people had come in earlier on the scheduled flight from Tingwall [on
the Orkney Islands] and they saw it, but it was last seen heading into
the distance."
The Caspian plover is incredibly rare in Britain and has only been
spotted in this country in two of the 118 years since the first record
in 1890. The first one, a male, had a different welcome at Great
Yarmouth, Norfolk, on 22 May 1890. The bird was shot and now resides
in the specimen collection at the Castle Museum in Norwich.
But while the bird lovers left disappointed, the bird itself is
thought to be doing just fine. "There is no reason to suppose that
this one has come to any harm, and she will be quite capable of
finding her way back to Kazakhstan," said Mr
Shaw.==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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