Dunlin

It's unusual for me to go out birding during invertebrate season, but the weather let itself down this morning by failing to live up to either the BBC or Met Office forecasts, and after hanging around for a while in the hope that it would remember it was supposed to be at least partly sunny, I gave in, got the car out, and went to Farmoor. When I arrived it was still cloudy, the wind was howling across the reservoir, and I was glad of my fleece, but by the time I was half way around the perimeter of the larger section the sun had emerged and the temperature was soaring. This brought out a few dragons, but Farmoor isn't a great place for photographing Odonata because there's no marginal vegetation to attract them onto the water, so I stuck with the birds today.

When I first arrived I struck out along the causeway that separates the two halves of the reservoir, checking for small waders to either side as I went. A young man who was ambling in the same direction, carrying binoculars three times the size of mine, stopped and asked what I was hoping to see, and he told me that passage migrants are turning up at Farmoor almost every day at the moment, and though they don't usually stay long the influx will probably continue for about another month. So if you're in the area it's probably worth keeping an eye on the local bird alerts for the next few weeks.

Within a couple of minutes of having this conversation I caught up with a couple of Dunlin that were fossicking along the eastern edge of Farmoor 2. I've photographed Dunlin in flight over Slimbridge on a few occasions, but I've never been this close to any before, and I was charmed by them - not least because they seemed entirely unconcerned about people, and walked right past me several times as I sat on the low retaining wall taking photos. A little later they were joined by a lone Ringed Plover, which was much more reactive and harder to photograph, though I managed some reasonable shots after a little careful stalking. However, despite the extra effort I had to put into capturing them, the Ringed Plover images don't please me particularly because I've always found this bird rather unappealing, and that's why I'm posting the far easier, but much prettier, Dunlin.

I'm not sure everyone would agree with me about the Dunlin's looks though. BirdGuides has this to say about it: "At all seasons, Dunlin presents a highly distinctive profile: pot bellied, round backed, hunched, neckless, rather droopy billed and a little truncated at the rear end. Even at range, this characteristic shape is striking once learned." Other sources describe it as "plump" or "chunky", and almost everyone mentions the short neck and droopy bill. They also say that an adult in breeding plumage is very distinctive, with a chestnut back and a black belly, but descriptions of the winter plumage vary from "drab" through "muddy grey" to "monochrome". While I can hardly claim expertise in this species, I think I'm right in saying that the bright, "scaly" edges to its back feathers and wing coverts, and the faint hint of a white "V" on its back, mark out this individual as a juvenile.

In the UK we only have a small breeding population of Dunlin, and concerns that this resident population is decreasing have put it on the Red List. However in winter we play host to around 350,000 birds, mainly from Iceland, Scandinavia, and Russia, which gather in huge flocks in estuaries and on coastal mudflats. At the same time our own breeding population moves south, and birds from Greenland drop in on passage to southern Europe and North Africa.

By the way, most accounts of the origin of the Dunlin's name state that it means something that has the quality of being dun-coloured, but the Wildlife Trusts go entirely off piste and say that the name refers to the Dunlin's habit of breeding in upland bogs. You pays your money and takes your choice - personally, I'm a bit tired of all the damning with faint praise and outright denigration, and I prefer the idea of a Gaelic hill-pool.