Pratincoles

Adam Cheeseman · #1 (**permalink**) 03-06-2009, 04:16 PM

We currently have Common, Black-winged (north Kent and later on north Norfolk), and probable Oriental Pratincole (Dungeness today) present in Britain. Does anyone know if all three of these rare vagrants have pitched up in this country at the same time before.

Cheers,

Adam

diggleken · #2 (**permalink**) 03-06-2009, 04:48 PM

Hi Adam,
my twitching days are some time ago, but nope, not to my knowledge.
Nor can I find any reference to this in some twitchers books or such as rarer handbook etc etc.
I wonder if all the birding websites have a view?
Weekly news (free) from birdguides mentions them as below, but not the third one, possible oriental you mention?
That might be in this weeks news edition, worth signing up for.........!
''In a week seemingly full of re-orientating rarities (a Squacco Heron from Suffolk to Cambridgeshire, a Laughing Gull from Pembrokeshire to Lancashire, Whiskered Terns from Norfolk to West Yorkshire and then to Northamptonshire) it is a hard choice as to what qualifies as this week's Bird of the Week. However, the points decision goes to the bird that relocated first - that bird was the adult Collared Pratincole that moved from north Norfolk, after an eight-day stay, to West Yorkshire.

Found first at Salthouse on 15th May, the bird spent just over a week commuting between the marshes at Cley and Blakeney, where it was last seen early on the morning of 23rd. Later the same day, the Pratincole appeared again, this time some 150 miles to the northwest, at Swillington Ings in West Yorkshire.

The bird then spent three days (over the Bank Holiday weekend) dipping in and out of Astley Lake and was last seen there on the early morning of 25th. Whether this was the "probable" Collared Pratincole seen in Oxfordshire later the same day is a tricky one, but the report of one at Pugney's CP on 26th was surely one and the same.

Norfolk birders enjoyed the first twitchable modern-day Collared Pratincole in July 1994, that bird moving between Titchwell and Cley. The same bird then returned to the county until the summer of 1999, generally staying along the north coast, but it did pop down to east Norfolk, and Suffolk, in 1997. Birders in West Yorkshire have had a 20-year wait since their last Collared Pratincole and this bird was just the fourth record for the county.

Remarkably, the Norfolk to West Yorkshire relocation trick didn't limit itself to Collared Pratincole this week. Three Whiskered Terns that were first seen at Snettisham in west Norfolk on 23rd followed the exact same course as the Pratincole, relocating to Swillington on 24th.''
Cheers
Ken
PS Does Arthur Scargill count?

Adam Cheeseman · #3 (**permalink**) 03-06-2009, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by diggleken

ps does arthur scargill count?:d:d

rofl

RoyW · #4 (**permalink**) 03-06-2009, 05:01 PM

There are currently no accepted records of all three species in the country at the same time. All three species were recorded in 1981 but the Collared Pratincole didn't overlap with the others.

Roy