Dotterel

Eurasian Dotterel Charadrius morinellus, Beinn a' Bhuird, Cairngorms

Here is the prize of the camping trip to the Cairngorms, a dotterel at about 3000 feet on the mountain of Beinn a'Bhuird. This was one of a party of seven feeding on the lichen rich montane heaths, probably newly arrived, having migrated from their winter quarters in semi-desert in North Africa or the Middle East. This one looks like a male, unusually for a bird species, the drabber of the sexes, being the one that does the work of incubating the eggs. These are extraordinarily hardy little waders, breeding on the stony plateaux of the Cairngorms in an environment that is the closest we have in Britain to truly Arctic conditions. At this altitude there are still deep snow beds lying, and even much lower down where we were camping, we had snow.

The male's role in incubating the eggs is perhaps a reflection of the severe environment, and represents a more even division of resources between the male and female. The female produces two to four eggs shortly after migration, and in the extreme conditions of the high tops, she needs time to feed and build her body weight up again in time for migration back in the Autumn. The male has the reserves left to do the incubating, and being the one that sits on the eggs, is less colourful to blend in with his background.

Simon and I had left Bill behind in the pinewoods of Glen Quoich, he was nursing an injured knee. So we pushed on quickly up the old Land Rover track, now restored to just a footpath. We were following a couple with 4 dogs, and when they stopped for lunch it gave us the chance to overtake them. The merit of this was demonstrated later, when after I had taken a few shots of the dotterels, one of the dogs launched himself after the birds on the ground. They all flew, and apart from two flying by a bit later, we saw no more of them.

After that we climbed up into the cloud hovering over the mountain, and Simon navigated us safely to South Top. We were mindful all the time of the huge overhanging snow cornices on the corrie cliffs, we didn't dare venture onto a snow bed unless we could see the other side through the misty murk. Having skirted the corrie we made a rapid descent using some of the big snow beds, and were back in the campsite by mid-afternoon. A very good day.