Lincolnshire Pratincoles a very personal perspective:

Talking to Wayne and Clare on the phone on Saturday afternoon, fortunately before setting off on a long walk, the call and walk were abruptly cut short when Wayne exclaimed there’s a Black-winged Pratincole just flown through my scope. The rapid 20 mile drive to Nebraska wetlands near Kirton-in-Lindsey, famous only in Lincolnshire birding terms for the adult male Asian Houbara Bustard shot there on October 7th 1847, saw us watching this cracking juvenile and got me pondering on previous county records and my involvement in a few. Read on and enjoy a few images of past birds.

Adult Collared Pratincole Rosper Road Pools North Lincolnshire May 1st 2011

The first Lincolnshire record of any pratincole was briefly recorded in the 1952 Birds of Lincolnshire (Smith and Cornwallis) as one shot near Lincoln on August 15th 1827 and recorded by Yarrell. By the time of the publication of The Birds of Lincolnshire and South Humberside in 1989 (Lorand and Atkin) further details had been added with the bird now confirmed as Collared Pratincole shot by F Oats at Branston Hall: From Mr. F. Holme I learned, that a Pratincole was shot by Frederick Oats, Esq., of Branston Hall, near Lincoln, on the 15th of August 1827, whilst flying about much like a Swallow and near the ground."

1973: A full 146 years then elapsed before the first Collared Pratincole of the observed era was one of the first birds to be seen on the newly created Mere scrape at Gibraltar Point on May 21st 1973.

1977: A Collared Pratincole seen at Blacktoft Sands was reported to have flown east over Trent Falls at the head of the Humber on June 11th 1977 before being relocated at Spurn the following day. Maybe a debatable Lincolnshire occurrence as it was only seen from Blacktoft the record was included by Lorand and Atkin but was not repeated in the 2021 Birds of Lincolnshire.

1980: On August 11th I was stood on the old station platform at Barrow Haven when a bird approached mobbed by a large flock of Sand Martins – oddly I had left my bins inside and had to dash to get them but I could quickly see it was a pratincole sp but by the time I was looking at it through bins it was starting to go away and although I suspected Black-winged I never saw enough on it to be sure and it was submitted and accepted by BBRC as a Pratincole sp. After finishing work I searched nearby suitable spots but to no avail.

1981: A Collared Pratincole was seen at the south end of Donna Nook by Mike Tarrant the third confirmed Lincolnshire record.

2009: Amazingly it was then another 28 years before the next Lincolnshire pratincole when a Collared was seen at Frampton Marsh from August 8th – 9th 2009. With this species absent from my confirmed Lincolnshire list there ensued a rapid drive to Frampton on the 9th confounded somewhat by a thirteen-and-a-half-hour journey from North Uist where we had been on holiday, the previous day – overnight but what was another 90 minutes on top of that.

2010: After some very long historical gaps from 2009 pratincole records started to pick up considerably but not many people would have predicted that the next Lincolnshire species would be the ultra-rare Oriental rather than the expected Black-winged. With only six previous UK records the arrival of an adult at Frampton Marsh on May 9th was a major British event. The bird stayed loyal to the site to the 19th with several hundred birders travelling to watch it hawking insects over the new RSPB reserve. [subsequently an early historical record came to light when a specimen obtained in 1908 on the Outer Hebrides Eilean Mor, Flannan Isles, adult female, obtained, 13th July, became a retrospective British first. ]

Quoting from the BBRC report for that year: Oriental Pratincole remains an extremely rare visitor to Europe, and the 2010 record follows one in 2009 (in Kent and Sussex) that was conceivably the same individual. Unsurprisingly, this was the first record for Lincolnshire, and formed a nice double for the new reserve at Frampton Marsh following the previous year’s Collared Pratincole G. pratincola (which graced the same scrapes). It also followed an established pattern of being found in the spring in the south-eastern quarter of England. The nearest breeding birds to Britain are in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent (although these birds are mostly short-distance migrants within India so are unlikely to be the source of our vagrants). However, the east Asian population breeds well to the east and south of the Lake Baikal watershed, and migrates to the south and east to winter in southeast Asia.

Needless to say this remains the only county record.

Oriental Pratincole Frampton Marsh May 9th 2010

I made two trips for this bird on May 9th and 11th with most images taken with the Canon 1D4 and 500 f4 with 1.4 converter

With this being the most recent of the eight British records and none for the last 15 years the chances of another Lincolnshire record are maybe rather slim?

Views of this bird and photo opportunities were superb unlike most county pratincoles

not going deep into ID features but the short tail and shallow fork with chestnut underwing coverts and beautiful cinnamon wash to upper breast are obvious

My twitching history has been somewaht erratic over the years and distinctly lacking in the last ten but in 1993 on May 30th I was in Norfolk with JH looking for a long staying Oriental Pratincole which we missed but the same day we saw the singing male Asian Desert Warbler on Blakeney Point and while watching it realised there were no people nearby - in years before instant communications it was only when we started walking back down the Point that we were informed there was a Pacific Swift at Cley then having had good views of that bird news arrived that Kev DuRose had found Lincolnshire’s first Sociable Lapwing at Kirkby -on- Bain which we duly saw on the return journey - not a bad day pity about the pratincole

This shot appeared in the 2010 BBRC report but at least in the PDF version it has been badly reproduced and seriously underexposed

2011: Three pratincoles in successive years were certainly unprecedented when Tom Lowe found a cracking adult Collared at Rosper Road Pools, South Killingholme on April 27th the earliest county record. It stayed in the area through to May 7th. Somewhat frustratingly I had been surveying the very same pools for the previous six months to March 2011 and I learnt about the bird’s presence while sitting in Sweden on a Great Grey Owl photographic foray. Arriving back at Stanstead airport late afternoon on May 1st it was a nervous drive back to Lincolnshire and an apologetic phone call to the family explaining why I would be late back. On arrival by the pools there was no-one present but the bird soon appeared and even with my 300mm lens and converters I was able to get some images and see the bird which was virtually on one of my local birding hot spots having covered North Killingholme pits and area since the late 1960’s; the first good bird I found at Rosper Road pools being a Pectoral Sandpiper in September 1977!

Concentrating on photographing Great Grey Owls was tough with a local Collared Pratincole niggling away

I had only taken my 300 3.8 lens with me as light levels were expected to be low when the owls were hunting

One of my first images of the Rosper Road Collared Pratincole taken in low evening sun which it says was at 19:37 so getting pretty late in the day on May 1st

Canon 1D4 and 300 2.8 lens with 2x converter

The following morning when I went back for seconds with the 500 f4 the light was nothing like as good being cloudy and a bit flat

It occasionally landed on this mound of gas filled weed

In shadow the colour of the underwing coverts can be difficult to interpret

2014: The last of the pratincole species to be added to the county list, a Black-winged, appeared at Gibraltar Point on July 14th after being seen in Cleveland, Co Durham and Northumberland in June – July. Its stay though, was all too brief before it moved on to North Norfolk and then the Ouse Washes.

2019: Oddly the next pratincole in the county was another Black-winged this time at Frampton Marsh June 18th – 21st completing the set for the reserve and allowing more county listers to see the species. I was looking for a potential Vagrant Emperor dragonfly at east Halton Skitter on the morning of its discovery receiving the inevitable message from Anthony Bentley and having to hot foot it the two miles back to my car and just another 70 to Frampton.

Never close and with plenty of heat distortion my images were less than good falling in the record shot category

It would be nice to get one some time as close as the other two species

Poor quality video through scope and phone of the Frampton Black-winged Pratincole

2023: A pratincole sp seen by N Drinkall at Alkborough Flats on October 15th was presumably the moulting juvenile Collared Pratincole seen in Northumberland 12th and Cleveland 13th before being reported but never confirmed in South Lincolnshire at Frampton Marsh on the 18th and then heading off to Slimbridge, Gloucestershire from 20th – 29th. Almost certainly but to muddy the waters a little a Black-winged Pratincole was in Cheshire on the 22nd.

2025: After a blank year 2025 produced a veritable flurry of records with a Collared Pratincole at Frampton Marsh from June 22nd – 29th after being first seen in West Yorkshire 19th. The first two species year was confirmed when a Black-winged Pratincole hawked insects around Theddlethorpe – Mablethorpe dunes on August 11th but was it the same bird subsequently seen in Northumberland at East Chevington August 12th – 13th then Carnoustie Angus 16th. What is certain is that the Northumberland bird and presumably the Fife individual was found by Wayne Gillatt at Nebraska wetlands near Kirton-in-Lindsey on August 23rd remining to midday on 25th when it flew off high.