While I was at Cabranosa I got some advice from local birder Simon Wates on where too look for
dotterel nearby and was delighted to find five birds. Then when I was heading
back to my apartment I bumped into my informant again at the side of the road
only to find that he was watching a putative saker which has been in the area
for a few days. It looks really good to me, but falcons are as bad as ducks
when it comes to escapees and hybridisation, so who knows? When the falcon
finally flew it flushed a pallid harrier which was a very surreal moment to
have the two flying together.
The dotterel all looked like adults to me. I don't think that I've ever
actually seen adults at the time of year before, in the UK it's usually
juveniles that I see in autumn.
Nice streaked underparts.
A nice cinnamon brown back with streaks on the underparts and a pale supercilium all seem like good features of saker to me. The only issue I have is that the trousers look pale, which I think is a feature of lanner. That said, this bird was distant and against the setting sun and was photographed handheld on my phone so and there are other photos online of sakers with pale trousers so all of these things need to be taken into account.
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