On a glorious sunny day spent at Minsmere RSPB Reserve on Thursday, I was walking along the top of the sand dunes when I spotted a Ringed Plover standing on a ridge of shingle some distance off ....
....suddenly the bird flew straight at a passing adult Herring Gull, chasing (I can hardly call it mobbing as it was a single Plover) the large gull for a couple of hundred yards away from the area of beach where it was sitting....
....The plover (in fact there was a pair) returned to its guard post on the beach before....
....driving off a juvenile gull (Black Headed Gull?) a few minutes later.
After searching the beach for 20 minutes or so, I eventually spotted the cause of the plover's concern, two recently hatched plover chicks about 40 yards away....
...There may have been other chicks, brilliantly camouflaged against the multi coloured beach, but these were the only two I saw, and only really visible when they moved around looking for insects, the parents only having guarding duties.
These photos were taken over a period of three quarters of an hour, at a distance in order to not disturb the adults from their duties, hence not quite as sharp as I would have ideally wanted.
What bravery by the adults plovers (length 18 to 20 cms long) against these strong marauding gulls (Herring Gull 55 to 67 cms long), many times their size and weight. I had to leave this ongoing drama to visit other parts of the reserve, hoping that the young chicks survived.
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