Bank holiday with early autumn migrants, Dotterel and Red-necked Phalarope and the hunt for Dark Matter

I did less birding than usual in August, mainly because it was often too hot to stay out for long. With a few scarce early migrants beginning to arrive, however, it was time to get out again. After all, what could possibly go wrong when sharing the roads with the bank holiday hordes?

My first stop was relatively close—just a 50-minute drive. As Einstein might say, it’s all relative! My destination was Kingsbury Water Park, where a very confiding Red-necked Phalarope had been present for several days. Two comparatively scarce Phalaropes—the Red-necked and Grey—can usually be added to a UK year list with some effort. The third species on the UK list is the much rarer Wilson’s Phalarope, a North American vagrant that I have also seen in Britain.

The phalarope was said to favour the shoreline near the sailing club, just a five-minute walk from the car park. When I arrived, four other birders were watching this whirling dervish spin frantically in the shallows, picking insects from the surface.

This phalarope breeds mainly in Arctic regions of North America and Europe, although a small number nest at the southern edge of their range in Scotland’s northern islands. I have been very fortunate to see them in breeding plumage in the Outer Hebrides. Unusually, the female is  the more brightly coloured bird, with a chestnut-red nape that presumably gives the species its name. The Kingsbury bird was a juvenile, grey brown above with buff underparts and a black eyestripe.

This reversal of male and female roles also extends to breeding behaviour. Females compete for males and guard their mates from rivals until the clutch is complete and the male begins incubating. Males then handle all incubation and chick-rearing, while females may seek another mate. A female may lay several clutches in a season if her first nest fails or adult males outnumber females. Once it is too late to start another nest, females migrate south, leaving the males to incubate the eggs and care for the young. 

As noted above, phalaropes are migratory and, unlike most waders, spend the winter on tropical seas. Whenever I see one, I marvel that such a tiny bird can survive much of the year on the open ocean, buffeted by storm waves that must dwarf it.

Because they breed in the far north and spend the rest of the year far out at sea, Red-necked Phalaropes rarely encounter people and can therefore be remarkably confiding when they stop over in the UK. The Kingsbury bird was no exception, drifting closer and closer  to the shore as we watched providing us with excellent views.

Buoyed by this early success, I made the somewhat reckless decision to drive more than two hours to Great Orme’s Head in Wales, where another confiding scarce migrant—a Dotterel—had been showing well for several days.

If you have ever visited Great Orme’s Head, you will know that this barren, rocky headland can be staggeringly beautiful in the right weather. In fierce, windy storms, however, it is far less appealing! As I drove along the North Wales coast, the opposite carriageway was gridlocked with frustrated holidaymakers heading home. Then the heavens opened, and I again questioned the wisdom of this foolhardy venture.

By the time I arrived, the rain had given way to more encouraging patches of sunshine, and I set off to find somewhere to park. The Dotterel had been reported near the cairn early that morning, and my map appeared to show parking nearby. As anyone familiar with this well-known beauty spot will know, a long, winding one-way road circles the headland and takes about 30 minutes to complete. After missing the car park on my first circuit, I went around again and parked as close as possible to the reported location. I then followed a concrete path towards the cairn, only to discover that the unsigned car park was at the far end.

I soon met another birder searching for the Dotterel, but he told me it had not been seen for three hours. This was beginning to look like another foolhardy Jim Hutchins endeavour. Fortunately, almost at once, a birder farther up the hill began waving to us. He had found our quarry: a juvenile Dotterel hunkered down among the limestone. Dotterels breed across the Arctic tundra from Norway to eastern Siberia, with small numbers also nesting in the Scottish mountains. I first saw them many years ago on a trip to the Cairngorms with Jeremy. Strongly migratory, they winter from Morocco eastwards to Iran. During the autumn migration, small numbers pass through England, usually stopping on grassy hilltops such as this one.

In breeding plumage, Dotterels are attractive brown birds with black streaking, a broad white eyestripe and an orange-red chest band. Their tame, trusting nature may explain why “dotterel” came to be used contemptuously for an old fool. The English name is said to date from the 15^th century, when it was used as an insult for someone considered simple or foolish. As a bird of mountains and the Arctic, this juvenile’s confiding behaviour probably reflected its limited contact with people.

Continuing the earlier theme, Dotterels also reverse the usual breeding roles. The more brightly coloured female takes no part in incubating the eggs or raising the chicks; she leaves to find another male and lay a further clutch.

I spent around 90 minutes photographing and admiring my new friend. Laying quietly on the grass the Dotterel was quite happy approaching to within a few meters. The only time it was spooked was when a Herring Gull flew low over it.

Before heading home, I made a brief but fruitless search for the Choughs I knew were nearby. When I entered my destination, the satnav cheerfully warned, “Bad weather warning for storm—do you wish to proceed?” Its credibility, however, suffered when I did not encounter a single drop of rain on the long journey home!

Regular readers will know that I am a former academic physicist who crossed to the dark side, following the money into the high-tech industry. As a result, I occasionally stray from birds into the esoteric world of physics.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing physicists is that we still do not know what 85% of the universe is made of—a black hole in our understanding indeed. The motion of distant galaxies reveals far more mass than we can observe directly. There are two possible explanations: either most of the universe consists of matter that our usual methods cannot detect, or Einstein’s theory of general relativity is wrong. Since general relativity has passed every experimental test thrown at it over the past century, most physicists favour the first explanation.

One proposed solution is a new elementary particle—the weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP—which could account for 85% of the universe’s matter. WIMPs are elusive because they interact with ordinary matter only through gravity. Of the four fundamental forces—the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity—gravity is by far the weakest. This is why a small bar magnet can overcome the gravitational pull of the entire Earth.

Here comes the exciting part: the first WIMP may have been detected in a vast particle detector buried deep underground to shield it from interference. When a particle strikes a xenon atom inside the detector, it produces a tiny flash of light that sensitive instruments around the tank can measure. Researchers recently recorded one such event consistent with a WIMP about 200 times the mass of a proton.

Particle physicists generally require a five-sigma result to confirm a discovery, meaning there is only a one-in-3.5-million chance that the signal is a statistical fluke rather than evidence of dark matter. The recently detected WIMP candidate reached 2.6 sigma, leaving roughly a one-in-200 chance of a chance result. More data are therefore needed before we can conclude that we have identified what makes up most of the universe we live in.

Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!