Country diary: Plover cousins take flight – but it’s not all glittering harmony

Cycling up Tan Hill, a bullying crosswind almost blew us over, so we stopped at Britain’s highest pub, the Tan Hill Inn, for a bracer. Sat at the bar, an American tourist approached to ask the bartender for the beer list. I caught her eye and she allowed herself the trace of a smile before running through the options. We left the pub reflecting on the finer detail of cultural difference.

Rushing downhill, we turned across Sleightholme Moor, handlebars trying to tear themselves from my grip as the front wheel bounced over the bumpy surface of the rough track. I was happy to see that recent attempts to block access to this ancient route have been thwarted. It is a wild spot, empty and remote, made more so by the roar of the gale. Yet it is richly inhabited.

As we approached a patch of rough grassland, some of its denizens lifted into the air: dandy lapwings, black crests pinned back by the wind, their backs glowing emerald and purple in a sudden burst of sunlight. And shining among them, an equal number of golden plover: just a dozen birds in all, but such a welcome sight, the dark moor transformed by their glittering light.

These grassland plovers blending together is a common sight on their estuarine wintering grounds, but less so here where they breed. The lapwing is an expert worm hunter, the golden plover less so, but it watches its larger cousin’s movements and slips in on sharp wings to sponge off the lapwing’s success.

This is, predictably enough, an annoyance for the lapwings, and as they rose into the air, broad wings angled back against the gusts, they barged towards the golden plovers, threatening them with an abbreviated burst of their scraping, looping song.

The golden plovers offered in return their mournful piping, as though acknowledging their lost opportunity. Then the two species diverged, one disappearing north and the other south, their mixed colours separating out before fading into the distance, leaving only the buffeting wind.

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