A Caspian Milestone

Storm Bert has really shaken things up. Two days of snow and ice vanished in a flash, with this raging Atlantic storm taking hold since. It's been such a calm autumn, in fact one of the calmest I can recall, so it has been a bit of a shock to the system!  

Yesterday a few looks at the sea revealed nothing but towering waves, but several looks along the river, which remained at high-tide water levels all day, showed there were good numbers of gulls taking refuge. Weather aside, you can always tell there's a significant storm going on by the numbers of Great Black-backed Gulls. During 'normal weather' periods Herring Gulls provide the bulk of the Axe's large gull numbers, but during storms like this Great Black-backs, which presumably would usually be feeding somewhere out in the English Channel, take over. I counted 230 early afternoon yesterday, compared to just 90 Herring Gulls.

A distant probable Caspian Gull on Colyford Marsh late morning was really frustrating, however all came good when a final check of the pre roosting Gulls on the Estuary showed a stunning second-winter Caspian Gull floating down the Estuary off Coronation Corner.  The 40th Caspian Gull for the Axe!  

I would have loved to have captured this landmark larid with a pin sharp photo, however I completely fluffed it in the gloom, which I am gutted about. Not only was it the 40th Casp, but it was a stunner.  When I was finally getting my camera lined on to it, it took flight so some frantic random pointing and clicking followed, which resulted in this...

Well there's no doubting its white and black tail! 

I spent the rest of the evening kicking myself for making such a pigs ear of things.  It was a lovely long elongated bird, with a long narrow bill and some really striking grey botching encasing it's snowy white head, with its small black eye looking so striking.  I have been trawling the internet to find a bird like it, and this bird snapped at Dungeness back in December 2018, although not looking anywhere near as impressive in shape, has a very similar plumage and bare part colouration to my bird...

The head was almost an exact match, thick grey blotching mostly around rear of neck, but some almost wrapping around the front of the neck making the white head even more striking!

The gulls last night were constantly coming and going, and shortly after the Caspian Gull had flown south towards the sea I picked up a second-winter Yellow-legged Gull upriver, which then floated past me.  

So all in all a good gulling session, just not very well documented!