I'm currently writing species accounts for Lapwing and Golden Plover for the Greater Manchester County Report. The basis of the report is the database of records formally submitted to the Greater Manchester Bird Recording Group which is in the safe keeping of Ian McKerchar and Steve Atkins.
I was rather shocked to find that there were rather few records of roof roosts of either species in the database when there are so many postings on this thread, so I took a closer look. It transpired that only about a quarter of the sightings below were ever submitted to GMBRG. Both these species are of conservation concern. Lapwing is red-listed and Golden Plover is amber-listed, both in part due to declines in their wintering populations - WE NEED YOUR RECORDS!
What concerns me most is that this situation must apply across the whole range of bird species and that the conservation of our birds may suffer just because people can't be bothered to submit their records. If you can post on this forum, you can enter the record on a spreadsheet, or Rodis or Mapmate or BirdTrack - Ian and Steve have provided enough options to make life easier for you. Neither of them have the time to read every post on the forum and type the details into the database.
Please make it a New Year's resolution to record your bird sightings properly - but start NOW!
Mixed flock of Lapwing and Golden Plover seen circling the Carpet Store at the junction of Oldham Rd and Droylsden Rd at about 8:30 this morning. Rough estimate as driving past, 60 Lapwing 20 Golden Plover.
No-one has reported any roof-roosting Golden Plover this autumn.
If you do see any, this is the weekend of the European Golden Plover Census so please report any sightings of the species (whether on roofs or not) via Birdtrack.
10 Lapwing on the roof of Car People Ashton Moss this afternoon. Numbers have been fluctuating in the last couple of weeks, but no more than 10 present
In Wigan town centre, 36 Lapwing, accompanied by 1 Starling, just circled low past Chapel Lane car park then dropped towards the closed Santander building
Just dropped a hire van off at Howarth Brothers which is between Oldham and Shaw near Derker. Whilst there I was mobbed by a Lapwing in the car park, it was coming to within a couple of feet of my head. Thought this unusual for the vicinity (although they do roost in quite large numbers on various roofs around here in the winter) so I enquired with the owners who told me they regularly nest on the roof there. It would be interesting to know how successful they are but I suspect observation would be a little tricky. Great close up views however.
At 12.30pm approx 50-60 Lapwing circling over Tom Chandleys then over the NHS buildings on Windmill Lane, then back over Tom Chandleys, I'd driven further down towards Sainsburys so didn't see which roof they chose in the end.
-- Edited by Rob Creek on Monday 24th of February 2014 10:49:49 AM
As I walked down Blackburn Road, Bolton at about 9.40am there were about 100 Lapwings up in the air above the Halliwell Road junction. They then landed briefly before flying around for a while again, and then headed off towards Tonge Moor.