Oriental Plovers at IRRI - 15 Sept 2013

On Sunday morning I decided to try and relocate the ernesti Peregrine I had seen the previous day on the upland farms (see here). I tried first at about 6:30 am in heavily overcast conditions, with no luck At about 10:30 the sun came out and I thought I'd have another go. Again there was no sign, but there were a lot of Oriental Pratincoles and Yellow Wagtails about, and my thoughts turned to checking the fields for more migrants. The fields on the upland farm are fallow at the moment, with a lot of maize stubble, and I drove around these thinking idle thoughts of mega migrants when I spotted what looked like a large plover spp. in one of the fields. When I looked at in through the bins my first thought was 'this isn't a Pacific Golden Plover'. A second look  revealed a second and a third bird, one of which was very pale with a strong breast band, and I then realised that I was looking at Oriental Plover, a bird that has been near the top of my Philippine wish list ever since I'd found out I was coming here.

Richard quickly joined me, and we counted a total of 9 birds, though it's possible there were others as they kept on disappearing into the stubble.

The birds were even more confiding on the Monday afternoon. Quite happy to be within 15 metres or so of the car.

This seems to be a juvenile, with a slightly less contrasting supercilium.

This strongly marked bird is possibly a winter plumaged adult