Tiree is a traditional spring staging area for golden plovers as they head north in spring towards their breeding grounds in Iceland. Some 2-3,000 golden plovers typically winter on the island's well-managed machairs and in-bye grasslands, but these are joined by additional birds in March that have wintered further south. As spring progresses, further birds arrive and if the winds hold in the north, flocks of thousands of birds build-up on the island in April as they wait for more favourable tail-winds to cross the North Atlantic ocean to Iceland. Flocks can occur all over the island but traditionally the largest group feeds on The Reef reserve and can be easily seen from the road that crosses its south end.
In spring 2017, northerly winds caused thousands of golden plovers to remain on Tiree and the Reef flock increased from 1,500 on 6 March to 2,450 on 20 March, to 3,850 on 5 April and then to a whopping 7,500 on 12 April creating an amazing spectacle! With additional flocks of 550 at Loch a' Phuill and 1,600 on the Ruaig machair that day, at least 9,650 golden plovers were present on Tiree on 12 April 2017! This figure is just below the record day-count of golden plovers on Tiree in 2013 when some 11,520 birds were counted on 29 April. Almost all of the birds were in their full breeding finery and presented a fantastic sight as they fed on invertebrates in a vast swarm on the well-grazed machair, but also flying around in massive murmurations, of the type normally associated with stalrings. Numbers have since dropped to the low thousands, as birds have started moving on up to Iceland, which is a week or two earlier than in previous years. Here's hoping they have a successful breeding season and return to the UK in good numbers in the autumn.