WTP On Tour....

Short-eared Owl. Geoff Gradwell.

....but first, an excellent image of the Short-eared Owl and my way of thanking Geoff for allowing me to use his photograph on Birds2blog and becoming another photographic contact for me. Geoff hasn't been blogging long and your support would be most welcome HERE ....Thanks for the photograph Geoff. 

There's currently a White-tailed Plover on tour in this country and in 2007 there was another tour of the same species when a one was found at Caerlaverock in Dumfries and Galloway on 6 June 2007, then four days later at Leighton Moss RSPB reserve in Lancashire on 10 June. The next sighting of a WTP is three years later in May 2010 when another is found at Seaforth on Merseyside, then two months later and four days ago on Rainham Marshes in London on 7 July, the bird then decides to make a move and is found two days later at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire on 9 July and 'blow me down' the bird is on the move again and now is present at Dungeness in Kent. A bird in County Durham in May 1984 was regarded as 'conceivably' the same one in Shropshire later the same month.

The first record of a WTP concerned a bird in Warwickshire in July 1975 and was then a totally unexpected addition to the British List. However, records show that there had been eight other sightings in Europe during the same year of 1975 including two birds in Austria. This movement appears to be linked to a severe drought in southern Kazakhstan - one of the birds breeding regions as well as in Iraq - in 1974-5. At the time of the 1975 individual the record seemed to have been a one-off occurrence, but surprisingly there have been more subsequent records including this up to date bird in Kent.

Nearer to home - well actually outside mine in Bowerham, Lancaster - 40 House Sparrows is an unprecedented record for me from our kitchen window yesterday Saturday 10 July.