Being Sociable 2 - Being REALLY Sociable

I have been obsessed with seeing Sociable Plover since I was a kid. And I know exactly what caused that obsession. It was this plate by Ian Lewington from Rare Birds


This. This is responsible.

This plate has haunted my dreams. The less said about Great Knot the better, and I found 3 White-Tailed Plover of my own in Israel, but not Sociable, the one I wanted most.


White-Tailed Plovers - Israel, Self Found.



I had hoped to come across Sociable on that trip too maybe, but it was not to be, and needless to say tis far from Sociable Plover we were reared in Ireland (at least not since the Stone Age).

A bird had been present all summer a good 9 hours plus drive away. I was even tempted when my Dad was over visiting back in June, but even with other birds available for him there, we couldn't face it.

This week began in awful fashion. On Monday the throat began with that awful ache, indicating that once again our daughter had brought a child-plague into the house. 

By Tuesday it had taken the bridge and the second hall of the sinuses.

And by Wednesday and Thursday I basically entered complete cell death, and was fully of the belief that having a colony of rats in the kitchen would be healthier than having kids.

Friday was still pretty bad. So bad that I bailed out of the planned trip to Hämeenkyrö. The thought of a weekend hacking my lungs over gathered people was not pleasant and so I received no resistance.

By sheer happenstance, pure coincidence now mind you, the same aforementioned Sociable Plover which had been up north...well it came south and was only an hour and 20 minutes away. 

And so, like Lazarus rising from the grave, or at the least a pale and horrific Nosferatu, I crawled from the Netflix and mucus fort I had created on the couch, dosed myself up with enough Paracetamol to destroy the liver of a Blue Whale, and made my way shakily east to Loviisa.

There hadn't been any news of the bird since the morning, when it was put out that it hadn't been seen for some 3 hours hence and the flock had halved. 

When I arrived at the site, there was just one car and no one in sight. Another car passed, and luckily it was some birders who did indeed inform me that it was there and showing well.

And so I rounded the corner of the field and found just one birder there...and the bird giving itself up. 😍

Said birder soon left and I was , amazingly, left alone watching an absolutely astounding mega, an absolute dream fulfilled. 














Sociable Plover - an absolute dream of a bird. 

Whether my eyes were watering from disease, or pure overwhelming emotion, the Gods themselves will never know.







I watched this bird for over an hour, completely undisturbed save for the occasional mosquito and the patter of light rain on my jacket. 

The bird roamed, back and forth on the flowery meadow, occasionally flapping or flying giving views of that incredible wing pattern. 

An experience so peaceful and so surreal, that this morning I briefly wondered if it had, indeed, been all a dream. 







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finnish Focus On...Taiga And Tundra Bean Geese

Image
Have been meaning to write a post on Tundra and Taiga Bean Goose identification for a while now. Wildfowl are my guilty pleasure. I've always enjoyed looking for them. The escape issue turns a lot of people off them. Grey geese can turn people off further still. Since moving to Finland, being able to spend long hours in the field watching both types of Bean Goose has been a joy, especially considering how rare they are in Ireland.  Tundra Bean Geese are the far commoner species to occur here, making them the easier to photograph and so a good place to start. Tundra Bean Goose Tundra Bean Goose - careful assessment of structure is most important when identifying bean geese. Whilst there are size differences between the smaller Tundra and larger Taiga, this plays out most obviously in their structure and shape. Both species, rear on, can be extremely difficult to pick apart without the structural clues visible. The head and bill structure are crucial in Bean Goose identification. Thi...
Read more

How To Be A Rarity Finder

Image
A recent statistic popped up in my various social media memories.  To date I've been birding on 4 continents, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, and found rare birds on each of them. Pretty happy with that. 😎 So thought a post on how to go about finding rarities and importantly, how to BE a rarity finder was worth throwing up. They may sound like the same thing, but I have different views on both. One is methodology. The other is an outlook. Combine the best of both and you will achieve your goals. First up, the Methodology . 1. KNOW YOUR BIRDS This is an obvious one (though people may have different perceptions on what this takes.)  It stands to reason though, that to find a Lesser Yellowlegs as a vagrant, you're going to have to know what a Redshank looks like (in all plumages)...and Greenshank ...and Wood Sandpiper ...and then...just to be really fecking sure... Greater Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpiper and Marsh Sandpiper too. Lesser Yellowlegs - I've found 6 Lesser...
Read more

Racism and Bigotry in Birding

Image
It's hard to pick up a newspaper these days and not read about something the new moniker "alt-right" are up to. The rise of racism to more mainstream levels is undeniable. Do we, as birders, need to have this discussion though? Do we know it's out there, among us? I'm pretty sure we do. It's tempting to believe the best about yourself, and this extrapolates to ourselves as a group; as birders. It's tempting to believe that the hobby of birding, taking place in nature, with a holistic, interconnected view of nature, would not harbour backwards, ignorant, scumbag neanderthals, that would discriminate on the basis of colour, creed, ethnicity, sex or sexual preference...over the past two years I've learned, sadly, that this temptation would lead you to the wrong conclusion. Birding, like any other microcosm of humanity, has it's share of these regrettable people. When I say over the past two years, I mean, perhaps, I have been just as ...
Read more