Cream-coloured Courser (BBRC)

Cordeaux (1899) noted the occurrence of this single county record as follows:  “The late Reverend John Mossop, of Covenham, had one in his cabinet taken on the coast of Lincolnshire, at Marshchapel, in a very exhausted state when captured, this was about 1840”. BBRC logs a total of thirty British records up to 1949, but it has since become much rarer with just eight records since 1950, the most recent was at Bradnor Hill in Herefordshire from 20th to 23rd May 2012. Records elsewhere in northern Europe reflect those in Britain, with an absence of spring birds and the majority of autumn vagrants in October. The breeding range of Cream-coloured Coursers is wide and extends from the Atlantic archipelagos of Cape Verde and the Canary Islands to North Africa. They breed patchily eastwards along the Sahel zone to the Middle East, through to Central Asia and north-west India. Recently a few pairs have bred in southern Spain in spring (2001). The prospects of another county record appear extremely slim, to say the least.

Reference

Cordeaux, J. P. (1899). A List of British Birds belonging to the Humber District. R.H. Porter, London.

(Account as per new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), included September 2022)