I've seen the impressive flock of Golden Plover on the western bank of the
Cleddau from Landshipping several times over recent weeks. I had not made a serious
attempt to count them, my various estimates ranging from 800-1000 to 1800+.
On
31 Oct, by estimating blocks of 50 and then a hundred, firstly with the birds on the mud, but mostly when in flight (they to take to the air fairly
often), I reckoned there were about 2000-2300...
But
how accurate was this? I had managed to get a flight shot of the flock, so to
try to answer this I edited the best pic so that the birds stood out
from the background as much as possible, printed it off at A3 size, then drew around
each group of 10 (see pics). It was a painstaking but strangely satisfying process!
(there must be software that can do this in seconds!). Remarkably and gratifyingly the total came to
2270!
Of
course there will still be a margin of error, e.g., it was often difficult
to make out if a larger bird shape was in fact two (or even 3) or just one so some of my tens
were likely to nines or even elevens! And did the photo show the whole flock? Possibly not....Anyway an interesting exercise and a wonderful sight in any case........
