WINTER’S WILDLIFE New visitors are twitcher heaven

SHOCK

Predicting future additions to the official list of British birds is one of those topics that twitchers love to chew over on their epic adventures.

Arduous drives and ferry journeys to the Isles of Scilly, or long treks to the Shetlands are all the more bearable when chatting about whether the next new bird to make it to our shores will be an American flycatcher or a Siberian warbler.

Shortly before the millennium, I teamed up with a leading high street bookmaker to write an article with expertly calculated odds on the likeliest birds to be added to the official British List.

The Siberian blue robin warranted its status as favourite when one was spotted in Suffolk a short time later. Purple martins and masked shrikes also justified their short prices by both turning up in 2004.

Over the past two decades, more than three dozen species have arrived from all points of the compass to bolster the British List to the remarkable number of 630.

Some, such as the Asiatic eastern crowned warbler, American red-winged blackbird and Iberian white-rumped swift, were long expected and tipped in my article. Others, in the shape of the Pacific tufted puffin and Caribbean red-footed booby, were complete surprises.

The discovery of a grey-headed lapwing in Northumberland earlier this month falls very much into the big shock category, with birders having to turn to textbooks to find out more about the species when one was found at Low Newton-by-the-Sea on May 1.

Although placed within the same genus as our northern lapwing – aka the peewit – the only shared features are the same upright, leggy stance.

As its name suggests, the head and neck are grey, while the underparts are white and decorated with a black chest band. The legs and bill are bright yellow.

The grey-headed lapwing’s arrival in the UK is something of a miracle as it breeds no nearer than China and winters in Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Greyheaded lapwing