Saturday April 12 was a day that avid Portugal Cove South birder Richard Thomas will never forget. Late that afternoon he spotted a small plover – a type of shorebird – on a sand bar upstream of the Biscay Bay River bridge. Since any small plover is a rarity on the southern Avalon in spring, he checked its field marks using his binoculars and then a spotting ‘scope.
“I almost fell over with shock,” said Thomas. “It was a Sand Plover – a bird I’d only seen previously in the Middle East, Thailand and Australia.”
Overcoming his astonishment, Thomas set about obtaining the photos necessary to prevent his sighting claim being met with universal disbelief by the birding community.
There are two basic, closely related types of Sand Plover, Thomas explained; the Lesser and Greater. Determining the identity of a lone Sand Plover can be a tricky business especially, as in the case of the Biscay Bay bird, it shows a mix of Greater and Lesser characteristics. After some debate, Greater Sand Plover has emerged as the consensus identification. The species breeds from Turkey across to Central Asia and winters on the coasts of East Africa, Arabia, India, Southeast Asia and Australia.
“One can only wonder where this bird came from and why on Earth it ended up at Biscay Bay,” said Thomas.
If accepted by the relevant ornithological authorities, this will represent the first record of a Greater Sand Plover for Canada and the third for North America, after lone birds were spotted in California in 2001 and Florida in 2009. Thomas said that after birding for 40 years this is by far the biggest rarity he has discovered and seriously doubts he’ll ever be able to top it.
The next morning, from 6 a.m. onward, a couple of dozen birders and bird photographers gathered at Biscay Bay. In Britain, where Thomas hails from originally, travelling to try and see a rare bird is called “twitching.” Thomas said one thing he appreciates about Newfoundland is that any twitches are comparatively small in scale, whereas in Britain the occurrence of a rarity of equivalent magnitude would undoubtedly have resulted in a couple of thousand people trying to connect with the bird.
As it was, the behaviour of a few of the participants in the Greater Sand Plover twitch left a lot to be desired in terms of field craft, common sense and respect for the star attraction itself, according to a report. In one case, a dog was let out of a vehicle and flushed the bird.
But Thomas remains excited and is happy to have been able to share the discovery with the rest of the birding world.
“The bird was last reported on Saturday, April 19 but might still be in the area,” Thomas said.
