The Single Parent

Over the past few weeks, while walking along the beach immediately below Golspie's promenade, we've noticed....

....a lone ringed plover moving ahead of us along the lower beach, calling. It's exactly how a plover would behave if it had a nest at the back of the beach but, with humans constantly walking their dogs along this very public section of beach, and with little cover between sand and the promenade, we couldn't believe that the bird was trying to draw us away from a nest.

However, today, when the plover began to do the same thing, we noticed another plover higher up on the beach, and this was definitely a juvenile, lacking the distinctive dark collar around its neck. Soon after we saw that....

....there were two others, slightly more mature, with the same adult doing the same diversionary tactics as before.

We've never seen a second adult so can only assume that this one has brought up at least three chicks, alone. It's an amazing achievement.