By Mark Hughes
The Caspian plover probably did not realise the chaos that would ensue when, after being blown 2,500 miles off course, the Asian bird decide to stop off on Fair Isle.
But her brief pitstop on the Scottish island at the end of last week did not go unnoticed. Just hours after the bird was spotted, two plane-loads of twitchers were racing to the remote island in a bid to catch a glimpse of the bird, so rare it has only been spotted in Britain three times before.
The groups shelled out £4,000 to charter two planes to get them to the island in the hope of seeing the bird, native to Kazakhstan. But their efforts were in vain: after landing on Fair Isle – part of the Shetland Islands – and spending hours scouring the three mile-long island, the twitchers finally admitted defeat. The Caspian plover had already gone.
ALAMYThe Caspian plover has only been spotted in the UK in two of the 118 years since the first record in 1890
"They were very disappointed but they are used to it, I think," said Deryk Shaw, a warden at the Fair Isle Bird Observatory.
Dr Jane Reid, a zoologist at Aberdeen University, had been looking for birds fitted with identity rings on Friday, when she came across the Caspian plover, a longish-legged bird with a distinctive broad fawn-grey section across its breast, which separates the white of its underparts and face.
She reported the sighting to Mr Shaw who went looking for the bird himself. He added: "By the time I got up there, it was gone. I spent one-and-a-half hours running around before I found it. You do get a buzz when you see a new bird."
After confirming the sighting, Mr Shaw reported it to birdwatching information groups.
Fair Isle, with just 70 residents, is considered Britain's most remote inhabited island. Famous for its rich bird life, the island has long been a top destination for twitchers, attracted by the chance to see many rare species. It is one of the best places in western Europe to see the Pechora pipit, Lanceolated warbler and Pallas's grasshopper warbler.
Within hours, two groups of twitchers from Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, and Inverness had flown nearly 400 miles to the bird-watching haven.
Mr Shaw explained: "Unfortunately, the plover had disappeared by the time they got here and it hasn't been seen since, so they had to leave disappointed. The pilots only had limited flying time available, so they didn't have time to hang about. They were depending on getting here, sighting the plover and getting back."
But not every twitcher's trip was unfruitful. Mr Shaw added: "Two people had come in earlier on the scheduled flight from Tingwall [on the Orkney Islands] and they saw it, but it was last seen heading into the distance."
The Caspian plover is incredibly rare in Britain and has only been spotted in this country in two of the 118 years since the first record in 1890. The first one, a male, had a different welcome at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on 22 May 1890. The bird was shot and now resides in the specimen collection at the Castle Museum in Norwich.
But while the bird lovers left disappointed, the bird itself is thought to be doing just fine. "There is no reason to suppose that this one has come to any harm, and she will be quite capable of finding her way back to Kazakhstan," said Mr Shaw.
