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| Distant record shot of the Killdeer in the January gloom |
I was just settling down to a relaxing coffee after early morning smallholding chores on Wednesday morning when the surprising news that a Killdeer had been found in Hampshire hit the bird alert services. I wouldn’t normally expect a “drop everything and twitch” moment in January, that’s much more likely in the spring and autumn, but, with three new UK ticks in the past two years and now the promise of a fourth, January seems to becoming the new October for me. After begging forgiveness from my long suffering wife, I loaded up the car and set off on the two and a half hour drive to Ripley.
Birds turn up in the most unlikely of places and this American beauty was no exception. It had been found on a small reservoir adjacent to a pig farm in the tiny hamlet of Ripley. I’m guessing that the local birder who found it must have thought that all his Christmas’s had come at once!
I thought parking was likely to be a real issue but it was easy to park on the verge near the path to the pig farm. I was quite surprised that there were only ten of so other cars there. Other relaxed looking returning birders encouraged me with the news that the wader was still present and after a 15 minute walk down a muddy lane serenaded by lots of young hyperactive noisy pigs I was looking over the tiny reservoir with perhaps 20 other birders. The reservoir had unwelcoming warning signage warning of deep and acidic water, I guess resulting from wash off from the pig farm. Another kind birder soon got me on the Killdeer and there it was as easy as that, UK bird 431 for me.
The Killdeer is rated a three star mega rarity in the Colins bird bible with a tendency for records to be in the Silly Isles and the Scottish Islands. In 2024 its status was changed to near threatened after a 20% population decline was recorded. It bares more than a passing resemblance to our Little Plover but is larger with the two breast bands perhaps being the most obvious distinguishing feature. The rump, which only shows in flight or when stretching its wings on the ground, is an attractive rusty orange. The nominate subspecies has a very wide range breeding from south-eastern Alaska and southern Canada right down to Mexico. North American breeders winter from their resident range south to Central America, the West Indies, and the northernmost portions of South America. So it is very likely that this bird got blown off course and landed on our shores in the autumn and has been hidden away somewhere ever since.
The wader was located some distance away beyond the reservoir on a patch of grass next to a wet stoney area. Viewing was from a gravel square next to the footpath by the pig farm. Weather conditions were in all honesty pretty bleak, well I guess its January after all, with intermittent rain and a penetratingly cold blustery wind. This meant that the Killdeer spent a lot of time hunkered down and facing into the prevailing wind, i.e with its back to us, which I could highly sympathise with. It occasionally got up and had a rather unenthusiastic peck around before soon settling down again to shelter. This provided the opportunity for a few distant record shots where at least you could see the two breast bands. It also had a few wing flaps allowing the orange rump to show.
And this is how it stayed for the two hours I was there apart from one incident when pretty much everything flushed and flew when a Peregrine went over. I hoped it would settle back down closer to us but after a quick circuit of the reservoir it landed back in exactly the same place.
Come 16:00, with no sign of it moving, I was absolutely chilled to the bone and so decided to leave all be it with that very satisfied feeling of a successful twitch and a new UK tick.
Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!
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