Ringed plovers are not common on my local patch. In fact, the only place I see them is amongst the rocks on Sully beach, and that’s exactly where these 15 were perched, snoozing, preening, balancing on one spindly looking leg, when I walked along the beach last week.

A Wheatear (right, front) shares the limelight with these 2 Ringed plovers.

Though their scientific name, Charadrius hiaticula, is a bit of a tongue-twister, they have, according to my Fauna Britannica, some wonderful vernacular names: bull’s-eye (Ireland); dulwilly and grundling (Lancashire); ringlestone (Yorkshire); sand tripper (County Down); shell-turner (Sussex); and wideawake (Somerset), to list just a few.