A touch of gold

Norfolk is well known for its great expanse of farmland; the huge fields are dominated by arable monocultures and there are few hedgerows or woodlots to halt the eye as you across the horizon. On dull winter days such fields can seem rather bleak; the dull shades of landscape merging into those of overcast skies, but with a frosty morning the earthen colours are warmed and lifted by the brightness of a clear blue sky. It is on such days that I like to search the fields for wintering waders and wildfowl. Towards the coast, fields may be crowded with feeding geese, pink-feet and brents, while inland they are dominated by waders like Lapwing and Golden Plover.

The Golden Plovers are a winter treat; birds from the upland breeding populations of northern England and Scotland are joined by those from Norway, Iceland, the Faeroes and even the westernmost parts of Siberia. Invariably, they can be found feeding alongside the noticeably larger Lapwings. It has been shown that the Golden Plovers actually use the presence of their larger cousins to indicate rich feeding opportunities. An arriving flock of ‘goldies’ (as us birdwatchers often call them) will drop down and land amongst the Lapwing, individual birds then adjusting their position within the flock on the basis of how well other birds seem to be feeding.

Nationally, our wintering Golden Plovers prefer to feed on earthworm-rich pastures but in Norfolk such pastures are uncommon and the birds associate with sugar beet, winter cereal and newly-planted oil seed rape. Flocks will use different areas for roosting and feeding but many seem to return to traditional sites from one winter to the next, making it relatively easy to track them down. However, birds will move in response to hard weather. If it is cold on the Continent then more arrive here; if it is cold here then the birds move off elsewhere. Much of the activity actually takes place at night. Simon Gillings, one of my colleagues at the British Trust for Ornithology, has spent a number of years studying the birds and their nocturnal feeding habits. He found that up to 80% of birds feed at night, often on fields some distance from where they had spent the day.

The flocks are worth scanning for other reasons, not least because the ‘goldies’ and Lapwings are sometimes joined by other birds. Just recently, near East Harling, one particular flock of plovers also held an American Golden Plover and a Dotterel ­– two really good birds for this part of the country. Black-headed Gulls are quite often found with the flocks, attracted by the easy pickings they can obtain by robbing the plovers of newly extracted earthworms.