West Freugh – 31.x.23

 My attempt to see the American Golden Plover, found recently at West Freugh, was unsuccessful due to a hunting Peregrine. The juvenile AGP has been associating with a flock of about 500 European Golden Plovers in a muddy field to the east of the M.O.D. airfield. To pick it out from among its congeners, you need the flock to remain on the ground long enough to spot a slightly smaller bird with pale greyish plumage, rather than golden. However, on this occasion, the birds were flighty and spent a lot of time airborne. When some 50 or so did settle, I got my scope onto them and almost did a jig of triumph. There indeed was a smaller paler greyish bird. But hang on a minute, there were in fact four of them. Something not right here! I looked more carefully and zoomed in a bit to discover the quartet were actually Knot. There were also some even smaller Dunlin scurrying about. Before I could continue scanning for the AGP, the whole lot took off once more, as did the plentiful Lapwing and some gulls that were also using the field. Then I saw the reason why: a bird of prey scything at speed across the area. It swooped up towards the panicking waders but failed to strike, confused perhaps by the swirling multitude. I got my bins onto it as it floated down to the ground and perched on a prominent clod of earth. A magnificent peregrine, adult female to judge by the white underparts with fine black barring and apparent large size.

After a while, the raptor took to the air again, apparently interested in some lapwing that were starting to drift back. Crows began to harass it however and escorted it away to the east, before it circled back around and landed once more in the muddy field where it drank from a pool of water. The Golden Plover flock was still airborne, quite high now and drifting towards the south-west. My estimated count came to 550-600. There seemed little chance of them returning as long as the peregrine remained, so I decided to circle around to the south of the airfield in hope they might alight somewhere on that side. But I saw no sign of them nor of any suitably bare fields. At low tide, they may go to the nearby coast and indeed I have seen a similar sized flock way out on Luce Sands, but that morning the tide was particularly high. So where else they may go remains a mystery.

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