Day 276 - Greatly Perky Grey Plovers

Grey Plover (Pluvialis squatarola) in summer plummage

Hey everyone today's Day 276 and as you will all know I have been to Norfolk recently, I went to a place called Titchwell Marsh which is run by the RSPB and I see so much there, I've still lots of birds and insects from there to write up! They used to have a thing called Spot It trails for kids which I really enjoyed and I remember finding something like 50, 60, 70 or more species (birds and bugs) in a day! I saw lots of different types of Plovers such as the Ringed and the Little-Ringed. I also saw one other type of Plover which was the Grey Plover. I said in my other post on Grey Plovers that I would try to find one in its Summer plumage, which is exactly what I did at Titchwell!

So, in these facts I will be repeating a lot of them but it was 101 days ago, so you might have forgotten them:

• Now the only real difference between their Summer and Winter plumage is that they have a black front, also their head turns to a tanned colour.

  

  Here's the winter plummage - ironic that the
  winter day was much brighter than the summer day
  that I spotted this bird on!

• They have only one similar bird, the Golden Plover, I don't see why its called a Golden Plover but the Juvenile has a sort of Golden tinge to it.

• They only seem to Winter in the UK and pass through in the Spring so seeing them in the Summer isn't a very common sight.

• They spend their Winter around the Coasts of most of the UK apart from Northern Scotland and North -Eastern Ireland.

• There are about 43,000 Wintering birds and a quite large amount of birds, around 70,000, pass through in the Spring.

• They are an Amber Status bird as they are a 'Localised Breeding population' and because they are 'an important Non-Breeding population'.

Looking out for prey

• They first breed at 2 years and live for an incredible-ish 9 years. The oldest though, was 25 years 1 month and 18 days. 

• They are 28cm long with a 77cm wingspan but only weigh around one quarter of a kilo.

• Their diet changes with the seasons in the Summer they eat a lot of invertebrates but in the Winter this changes to marine worms, molluscs and crustaceans.

• It finds its food by standing still and watching, running to peck the prey it's spied then standing still again.

Spotted and moving in for the peck!

• There is a bit of folklore about these birds too. It's meant to be bad luck if you see seven of them at once 'an ill omen' apparently and if you see the first one in Spring without any money in your pocket it will be a hard year ahead!

That's a little bit about these lovely birds, if you want to find out more try these sites:

Birdlife - Grey Plovers

RSPB - Grey Plovers

BTO - Grey Plovers

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.