How to Identify a Distant Dark Blob

Another fine afternoon persuaded me to nip out for a short walk out to Lamin's Lane. Considering the time of day, there was quite a bit of activity, particularly around the Three Ponds. The first of note was a Treecreeper flitting between some of the larger tree trunks by the first pond. Two Great Spotted Woodpecker were also seen in the trees around here. Walking along the track towards Woodside Liveries a couple of Nuthatch were busy chasing each other, calling as they went.

Along the Lamin's Lane track I heard and then found a Skylark singing high above the first field. I was keeping a lookout for any of the Buzzard, Partridge or even a Pheasant. The next field had been left fallow, and a quick scan turned up five Lapwing - probably where the ones I saw last week had flown up from. I watched them for a little while, mainly just sat in the field, but a couple of them took off and flew to nearby fields, calling as they went.

As I walked further down the track, I kept scanning the fields in the hope of Partridge or Pheasant. At the point where the track joins Lamin's Lane I caught sight of a movement near the hedgerow bordering the lane. A few seconds later a male Pheasant appeared (patch tick) and I grabbed the video camera, catching some footage before it disappeared through the hedge onto Lamin's Lane.

Heading back I decided to take another look at the Lapwing and reaped the reward. One of the them had been stationary on one particular spot of the field since I'd first seen it. As I was watching it, something nearby caught my eye. What was essentially a dark blob on the far side of the field, had the distinct look of a brown wader. Studying this blob with the bins for a minute or so showed up some head movement, confirming it was, at least, a bird. Now I just had to identify this "dark blob". Using the fence to stabilize the bins I tried to pick out some details... it was brown and around the same size as the nearby Lapwing, although slightly smaller. So, it was a juvenile Lapwing-sized brown blob.

Lapwing and brown blob [view from video camera at 10x zoom]

It was hopeless... well it was until I had a better idea. I could get closer to it, by going around to the other side of the field... and risk getting shot at, as I trespass on the farmer's land... or at least ruin all chances of getting in the farmer's good books, thus throwing away any chance I might have of having a friendly conversation with a farmer in the future (who's obviously doing a lot to encourage and support the local bird life). Plan B... actually, this was the only real plan, but Plan A (and its mildly-amusing consequences) briefly crossed my mind.

So I tried to steady the bins as best I could whilst holding the video camera to them with one hand and focus them with the other. The combination of magnification (10x and 10x) can give good enough magnification for a long-distance ID, provided you can hold everything steady enough and get the focus right. The image quality is quite poor, so it's no good for capturing decent footage, only for the odd still frame you might be lucky enough to grab for a record shot. If the subject isn't stationary, there's little chance of capturing anything whilst out in the field.

Anyway, enough about the optics... did it work? Yes. I'd had my suspicions that the brown blob was a Golden Plover, and an hour or so later, having grabbed about 40 of the best frames in five-minutes' worth of footage, I'd confirmed it. I've only seen Golden Plover a couple of times in the UK so it's a nice patch tick for me (number 65) - much nicer than having Pheasant as my latest patch tick!

The walk home produced a male Kestrel flying around the mast in almost exactly the same place as last week. The wing tips were rounded, so my first thought was Sparrowhawk, but a closer examination showed all the colours of a male Kestrel, with a lovely black-barred tail fanned out. Another great day on my patch courtesy of Lamin's Lane.