Pendle Hill

Dotterel 4 (2 females, 2 males)

Year: 232 (Dotterel)

At 1827 feet, Pendle Hill is a great place to experience such extreme birds as Dotterel, much better than some lowland arable field on the east coast, and today it was as if the witches themselves were against us and determined to stop us seeing the birds by throwing everything at us! The summit was covered in low cloud, visibility was poor, the wind was howling a gale and it poured it down the whole time we were there. For a while we were even battered by hailstone, and we were completely exposed to it all. The Dotterel however were quite unperturbed by the weather, as you might expect from birds that choose to breed high up on the Cairngorm plateau. They ran around feeding, almost up to our feet as we watched them from the summit trig point.

Photography was difficult, I was torn between trying to keep the camera dry and the lens free of rain drops, whilst at the same time trying to stay on my feet in the face of the gale. To top it all, the mist kept sweeping past making the birds periodically disappear into the fog and the light was poor and changing all of the time as the mist thinned slightly and then closed in again. My hands were numb with cold, I could barely press the buttons on the camera and I was thoroughly soaked, feet squelching in my boots, trousers sticking to my legs and water running down my back. So when you look at these photos, remember the difficulties, the pain and the discomfort we went through to bring them to you, to say nothing of the effort involved in climbing a hill that rises to over 1800 feet, and don't judge them too harshly.....

I love Pendle Hill, it's one of the highlights of the year.

This was our first sighting of Dotterel today, a brightly coloured female about 100m south of the trig point and looking thoroughly bedraggled.

When we reached the summit we found all four birds feeding around the trig point. The closest bird is a male, we'll meet him again later! The middle bird is the brightly coloured female from earlier, whilst the bird at the top of the photo is a less brightly coloured female. The second male is not on this photo.

For half a second the fog cleared allowing me to take a photo in reasonable light before closing in again.

And finally, this drab looking character is a male. Dotterel are one of the few species of bird in which the female is the most brightly coloured partner, because for some bizarre reason the male has decided that he'd prefer to sit on the eggs and bring up the kids rather than go out with his mates. No wonder he couldn't look me in the eye.....

Male (top) and female (bottom).