Friday, 12 July 2019

Rarity finders: Calandra Lark on North Uist


07/07/2019

Premonition is a strange thing. When something remarkable happens, it is all too easy to justify to ourselves afterwards that we predicted it would happen. However, it is a matter of record that the last thing I said to my friend (and keen twitcher) Stu Butchart as I left the BirdLife offices in Cambridge for a two-week holiday to the Outer Hebrides was "I'm going to find you a Bimaculated Lark on North Uist next week."
What is not a matter of record, though, is that, when I said it, I also thought to myself that it would probably 'only' be a Calandra Lark. Without wishing to plug a book that has not yet been published (too late!), I had just been working on the Melanocorypha texts for a Helm Guide to the world's larks that I'm writing with Per Alström, so these big, bulky birds were clearly on my mind.

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