Is the Dotterel heading for same British breeding fate as the Wryneck?

Dotterel - fears of a 2025 breeding catastrophe (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Worrying comments are being heard from those involved with  this summer's research survey of the breeding population in Britain of a much-cherished member of the plover family - the Dotterel.

Indications are that the species has fared disastrously in 2025 - possibly with as few as just three breeding pairs in the whole of Scotland, traditionally where it has its stronghold.

When, one afternoon earlier this month, expert Ian Francis spent seven hours scanning a mountain range spots in The Cairngorms where he has been accustomed to watching them in the past, he encountered not a single bird.

"It's not looking good," he said on Twitter.

It is thought that climatic change and dry weather have contributed to the demise of a bird which has been in decline since the second half of the last century.

A survey in 1988 recorded 980 breeding males in Britain, but,when the exercise was repeated in 2011, just 423 breeding males were counted.

There had been high hopes for 2025, with  spring sightings of resting migrant birds from various places in Britain - most notably a trip of seven which tarried for a few days at the North Gare golf  course in County Durham.

But this year, the moist and boggy conditions favoured by Dotterel and their insect prey have been absent.

The species is they are particularly associated with altitudes above 600 metres where moss–sedge is a predominant plant.

The best hope is that birds that would have nested In Scotland in favourable conditions  may have taken flight to join their counterparts in Arctic Norway and/ or or Siberia.

This is a notably itinerant species, and it is not uncommon for males and females to breed in different countries within the same season. 

In autumn, birds that have bred in Britain chiefly migrate to Morocco and other parts of north-western Africa while those that migrate further east head for north-eastern Africa and the Middle East.

In these regions, the species is under pressure during winter as a result of changed farming practices and industrial development.

In England and Wales, it is thought a combination of atmospheric nitrogen deposition and increased sheep grazing may have been responsible for its absence in former breeding locations as a result of degradation of moss-sedge and its replacement with grass.

Predation, hunting and other human disturbance are also likely to have been factors in the species' decline.

The summer 2025 'Montane Bird Survey', now drawing to its conclusion, has  been a collaboration between RSPB Scotland and NatureScot under the supervision of Dr Leah Kelly.

Hill-hiking volunteers taking part between May and July have also been monitoring two other high-altitude breeding species, Ptarmigan and Snow Bunting. 

It is not known when survey's results will be published.