Perfect weather today for large gulls on the Axe. In the end though the numbers were disappointing and I found nothing unusual in with them, well except for the lingering first-winter Caspian Gull (last seen on 26th Feb). I'm amazed at how infrequently we are seeing this lingering bird, just where is it hiding?
I will be honest, although all views of it were distant and during dreadful weather, when I first picked it up I thought I had a new individual. It just looked big, proper Casp leggy and necky, plus it looked quite a clean bird - all unlike the lingering bird...
Look at that neck!
At rest
The whole gull flock was then flushed and the Casp took to the air...
Quality completely naff as its a video still
Ditto, but it does at least show some of the classic Casp features
A minute later once most the gulls had gone with only about 25% of the original flock remaining, I picked it up again, now a little closer. It was then obvious that on plumage it was the lingering bird, with the distinctive patterning on the greater coverts a perfect match...
Looks really beaky in this shot. Again totally different to how the lingering bird usually looks
The weather was so awful this photo almost looks black and white!
A good lesson in how different postures can alter the overall look of one gull.
Excellent numbers of large gulls on the Estuary again today. I must have gone along the river about five times during the day, as everything was just perfect. Lots of gulls, often nice flat light to scan through them, and the tide times couldn't have been better with mud on show virtually all day...
Looking north from Coronation Corner
Sadly though, despite all my efforts I couldn't manage anything better than the lingering first-winter Caspian Gull, which I can't really complain about I suppose! It spent most of the day (midday to 17:30 at least) down by the Tram Sheds. It's funny how whenever it is on the Estuary it is almost always at this end of the river...
Caspian Gull on the left
Although it's moulted a bit since I last saw it, still shows the pale areas on its tertials and greater coverts, the two knackered upper most tertials and all that flank mottling.
Nice comparison shot with a first-winter Great Black-backed Gull
It was nice to bump into County Recorder Kev during one of my visits, who dropped in on the off-chance on his way back from Radipole. This was his first Axe Casp and I felt somewhat ashamed to show it to him, as this remains my least favourite of all the Axe Casps. It's such a small bodied, small-billed and 'dirty' looking individual, I like my first-winters big and bright!
This morning the Marsh Harrier was again hunting over Colyford Marsh. This is the longest staying Marsh Harrier in Axe history, and is a very welcome addition to the Axe wintering bird population...
A first-winter bird
Although the following pic isn't great, it does show the gorgeous colour of this bird's underparts. Can you get any more chocolate-brown than this...
I almost want to eat it!
Lastly, part-time patch birder Mike, who lives in Derby but often comes down here to visit his parents, texted me this afternoon with news of a locally staggering flock of 20 Pintail in off the sea late this afternoon. The start of some cold weather movement?
There's been really good numbers of large gulls on the Estuary today, including notably more Great Black-backed Gullswhich is always a good sign (means they're coming in from the sea). I was really hoping for a white-winger, but a text from Gav informing me of a Caspian Gull just before 3pm had me hurrying down to the Estuary.
Just as I pulled up at the lower end of the Estuary Gav informed me it had flown south, but luck was on my side as I could see it flying towards me low over the water. Pleasingly it landed again and remained here until at least 5pm...
First-winter Caspian Gull
Front to back; first-winter Herring Gull, first-winter Caspian Gull, second-winter Great Black-backed Gull
Front to back; second-winter Herring Gull, first-winter Herring Gull, first-winter Caspian Gull
Although I marvel at every Caspian Gull I see, as first-winter Casps go this isn't the best. It's bill in particular is pretty feeble, being only slightly narrower and longer than the nearby Herring Gulls. Also note how mottled the flanks are and it even has a bit of a shadow around it's eye. Still a striking looking thing though.
It's definitely not the whiter than white bird I saw on the Axe on 9th January, but it clearly is the other Casp that's been seen here this year. Gav thought he'd found this bird on 22nd January, but a few days later it came to light Tim White had photographed it on the Axe back on 17th January. This bird is distinctive enough from all the points I listed in the paragraph above (bill size and mottling), but it shows a couple more characteristic plumage traits too...
First-winter Caspian Gull
The red arrow is pointing to my favourite feature on this particular Caspian Gull, that lovely little pale line formed by the tips of the median coverts. It's really noticeable on this bird at rest. Then we have the two red 'circles'. The top one highlights the contrast between the lower moulted tertials, and the upper two unmoulted ones, which look completely knackered and are much browner in colour. The lower 'circle' highlights all that white in the greater coverts, inline with where they meet the lower tertials. This feature is really noticeable, even on distant pics of this bird. Most first-winter Casps show a neat and even white line along the tips of all the greater coverts.
You can see pretty much all these features on all the previous photos of this bird, which Gav has put together in a blog post HERE.
So this is my tenth Caspian Gull for the Axe, I can't wait for number eleven!
Mid afternoon Ian Mc texted with news of our second White-fronted Goose in three years on Colyford Marsh. But he soon texted again with more news, it had flown off... Thankfully Martin Wolinski was in the Tower Hide and phoned in excitement as an adult White-fronted Goose had just landed on the mud in front of him. Thanks for the call Martin.
By the time I got out this afternoon, it was back on Colyford Marsh where it thought it was a Shelduck...
But quickly saw sense, flew south, and decided it actually wanted to be a gull...
Although this is our second in three years, I missed the last one so it's my first on patch for a staggering six years and three months! The last one I saw/found here was a Greenland flavirostris bird. My last European White-front albifronswas six months before that, also a lone adult bird, but oddly in the month of May! White-fronted Geese are going the same way as all the grey goose species and winter swans for us, getting scarcer and scarcer. Whooper Swans and White-fronted Geese were virtually annual on the Axe ten plus years ago, presumably it's the milder winters meaning these species simply don't need to fly as far south and west.
As the post title suggests, there was more to the afternoon than the Goose. Just before 4pm the White-fronted Goose disappeared (I think it followed a small flock of Canada Geese south west) but was, amazingly, replaced by a gorgeous snowy-headed first-winter Caspian Gull! Another somewhat overdue bird, as I said the other day, our first since Nov 2015.
This is the seventh Caspian Gull I've found here, the ninth I've seen here (the Axe's thirteenth), and was just as gorgeous as all of them, but it was without doubt the most frustrating. My first views of it were very distant and in rapidly diminishing light. I drove to a different view point where it was closer, but after a brief clear view, gull after gull decided to stand in front of it before the whole flock took to the air and the Casp flew off south. Arse. Hopefully it sticks around.
So my first views looked like this...
Knowing the pictures would be so poor, I tried a video. This didn't prove much better...
Then I moved. Head and back end showing well here, just missing the middle bit (second gull left of the male Mallard)...
Not even a head in this picture, but it does show the wing quite well (note the solidly dark tertials with narrow pale tips, plain greater coverts and the amount of grey on the mantle)...
See what I mean - frustrating. I never managed the money shot, but thankfully saw all the key features, and most are visible in these pics somewhere (though some squinting may be required!). It wasn't a massive bird, larger than surrounding Herrings but not by much, and although its bill was narrow and longer than the Herrings, again it wasn't massive. This makes me think it's a female.
My photos are so poor that I'm not going to do my usual 'this is what makes it a Caspian Gull' notes. I will if I get some better shots I promise.
So great to see on social media that lots of people are coming over/getting out to enjoy the Colyford Common Water Pipits. They really are great value, I can't recommend them enough. And as today proves, who knows what else you might find...
The last line of my last post came true. Wow, what an afternoon...
It may have been very windy, sometimes wet and always grim, but the gulling on the Estuary this afternoon was absolutely fantastic! It even drew a crowd, namely an ex-patcher who just couldn't ignore my texts, and an incredible bird artist who is quite simply on another level...
Gav, Tim Worfolk (an Axe rarity - maybe an Axe first in fact?) and Tim Wright (aka Davey)
It all kicked off at about 13:15 when on looking through the first flock of gulls I came across at Coronation Corner, a gorgeous and thankfully completely classic first-winter Caspian Gull stood tall. My photos are shocking and really don't do it justice AT ALL, I just couldn't keep my scope and camera set up steady in the strong wind...
Bottom left, whiter than white and big and bold.
This could have been an excellent photo!
And this one had the potential to be even better!
I even tried a phone-scoped shot!
At least this one shows a bit more detail, a well advanced bird.
I texted the news out to the locals, and whilst waiting for Ian Mc and Dad to turn up I kept my scope fixed on it. Thankfully it did indeed remain in place for them, and for Tim Wright who turned up about half an hour later. I really wasn't expecting what came next though.... another one!
Once the two Ian's arrived I was able to take my eye off the first-winter and check the flock of 150+ gulls further up the Estuary. I swung my scope around and was shocked to see another Casp, a second-winter! WOW! A Casp double whammy!!! And only our second of this age ever on the Estuary (the first Axe bird was a second-winter). Sadly it always stayed distant and these phone-scope pics were as good as I got...
The bird just to the right of center, that distinctive neck streaking really made it stand out.
It's the one hunkered down behind the closest juv Herring Gull.
The fact it wasn't the longest billed Casp, or the biggest, made me think it could well be the bird that Mike Langman had at Broadsands last week - see HERE. I thought it was for most of the time I was watching it to be honest, but a brief view of its tail seemed to show a complete and quite broad black tail band (Mike's bird had a broken tail band). Also looking at the photos, maybe this bird does show heavier streaking behind the neck and more black in the tertials than the Broadsands bird?
Sadly before any other birders turned up, 95% of the large gulls present took off and flew south. Bye bye first-winter, but amazingly one of the six gulls remaining on the shingle spit included the second-winter Casp! Gav and Topsham Tim soon arrived and it remained on view until I left the scene at 15:20.
It wasn't just Casps here this afternoon. After the big flush that sent almost all of the gulls south, numbers gradually built up again as more were trickling in from the north, and these new arrivals included two adult Yellow-legged Gulls! One remained distant but what I saw of it looked good, and the closer one was a right cracker. You'll have to take my word for it though...
Pretty much smack bang in the middle.
What a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours, and just what I needed to take my mind of the evil in this world.
Yesterday wasn't the best of days for me. First of all my laptop wouldn't turn on and kept telling me there was a critical error during start up and all programs may be lost - bugger. Then there was the loaf of bread I made, totally cocked something up and it was completely inedible. And thirdly an attempted ringing session, which ended with me ringing no birds, and a female Pheasant having made a massive hole half way up and half way along my newest 60 foot net. I also got very wet as I hastily took the net down during a sudden heavy rain shower, which is also when I stood in a cow pat.
I'm pleased to say today is a much better day, and my laptop has been fixed (I'm currently backing everything up!). There was one upside to not having a laptop yesterday though - it meant I didn't waste my day staring at it! And my third check of the Estuary gulls mid afternoon gave me a rather nice reward, a lovely first-winter Caspian Gull. It was by the tram shed from 15:25-15:50, when it flew south towards the sea...
As first-winter Caspian Gulls go it was a pretty classic bird, nice and hefty in size, long-legged, long-billed, etc. In general it looked so pale (mostly thanks to the white head and pale grey mantle/scapular feathers), never would a Herring or Lesser Black-backed in first-winter plumage look this pale. This is what made me jump out of the car for the scope in the first place.
The only slightly different feature to what I am used to seeing was the faintly grey mottled flanks this bird showed, but I think I can explain this. We see most our Caspian Gulls here between Christmas and March when their necks, breasts and flanks are pure white, but this bird is much younger and could have been in full juvenile plumage less than two months ago. It did have clean white centre to the neck and breast, it was just the flanks and breast sides that had this faint mottling - I reckon give it a month and they will indeed be Daz white.
With the demise of the Not Quite Scilly blog, I best get a bit technical and explain exactly why this was a Caspian Gull in more detail. I hope this helps (click on the images to make them bigger and the text more readable)...
So with the gull taken into account, and the fact my laptop is fine, was yesterday really that bad? Well it sure could have been worse...
