We returned to the marsh we were at yesterday to try and get better looks at the Pied Lapwings, which we did, this time on the grassy area and not on the mud...
 |
| Pied Lapwing |
 |
| Pied Lapwing |
 |
| Pied Lapwing |
Elis also photographed this stilt, a different individual from yesterday.
 |
| Stilt from today. |
The first thing I noticed was that it had much more white on the crown than yesterday's bird but when it bent forward to feed, it revealed it had no white back at all. Alarm bells began to ring, the bird from yesterday had a darker crown than I would have expected, and the white back had some disturbing black flecks in it. Could it be be were looking at hybrids, and therefore we'd have to take White-backed Stilt off the list again?
 |
| Stilt from yesterday (with Pied Lapwing). |
As it happens, whilst we now think that we were in fact looking at hybrids. During our morning we saw at least 6 individuals, but among them were an adult Black-necked Stilt...
 |
| Black-necked Stilt |
and an adult White-backed Stilt! Phew!
 |
| White-backed Stilt |
No comments:
Post a Comment