Hybrid Gull (no please do still read this post!)

Now I'm not ashamed to say I've described many gulls using words like 'stunning' or 'cracking',  but I confess to hitting a new low late this morning...

I was actually mildly impressed by how smart a hybrid Herring x Lesser Black-backed Gull looked. My word I can't believe I'm even writing this!

Mantle colour actually not that far off a Yellow-legged Gull, but look at the wide white tertial crescent. The consistent feature with these hybrids (which you can just about make out in the above pic) is the pale washed out yellowy-pink legs.

Similar view but a little more zoom. A short-legged and compact bird but a bit longer-winged than surrounding Herring Gulls.

See doesn't it look smart!  The fine bill, clean white head and small eye, combined with mantle colour giving it an almost Caspian feel.  Nice!

Oh look - a fluky open wing shot!  What a mess though; sizeable window on P10, a little dot of white on P9 on right wing at least... I do like those narrow white bands that separate the grey and black on P5-P7 though.

What is nice is that this shot clearly rules out a small argentatus Scandinavian Herring Gull which would show far more white and far less black in the wing-tips.

So to summarise this post... No there were no decent gulls on the Axe Estuary today despite several scans.

A Counting Conundrum and Cattle Egret

So what are your counting skills like? Or estimating skills I should say... We popped into Greendale Farm Shop today (along the A3052 near Westpoint) and I was astonished to see the number of Linnets feeding in a neighboring field. I estimated 500 birds when I quickly counted this flock perched up, but what do you think?

I'll post the answer in a blog post on Sunday night, but before that I'd love to read your guesstimates. And I don't mean sit there and count them one by one, take a quick look, count them like you would a large flock of moving birds in the field, and let me know what number you come up with. Be so interesting to see the variation in responses. Is my 500 bang on the money, or would you go higher or lower?

I've been off work this week, and for the last few nights have been trying to get to grips with the Egret roost, but I've kept missing them! They keep switching sides, one night roosting on the Borrow Pit then the next night roosting in Axmouth - and I kept picking the wrong side!  Tonight finally I was in the right spot, and at Axmouth one Cattle Egret (which I reckon is a wintering bird that's been with us since Nov 2017, just been spending the day time north of the patch) and 48 Little Egrets came into roost.

Also tonight there were good numbers of large gulls on the lower Estuary at dusk. Sadly there was nothing better in them than this dodgy looking third-winter (I think) hybrid-type...

And lastly, Sue Murphy saw the two Musbury Hawfinch this afternoon, both from the car park near the Church.  Delighted that someone else has managed to catch up with them.

Right then, get guesstimating folks... 

Micahelless

Just after 10am I stumbled across this gull on the Estuary...

It was larger than the nearby Herring Gulls, showed a nice dark mantle and yellow legs (not bright but that's ok for a winter YLG) and the legs did look quite long. I did think it had a little more head streaking than expected for an adult winter Yellow-legged Gull, but it wasn't heavily streaked not by a long way.  All in all it looked a pretty good winter plumaged adult Yellow-legged Gull to me, huddled in with a group of wind blown Great Black-backed Gulls.  It certainly wasn't one of those small, pinky-yellow legged, funny coloured mantled hybrid things. This next photo shows the size of it compared with an adult Herring Gull (far right)..

But then it gave an all important wing flap and this is when it all fell to pieces...

Ugly. So so so ugly. P5 completely wrong with just half a black band, and what's going on with P9? Nothing more than a white speck on the right wing, but what looks like a proper small window on the left wing!

This was a worrying bird for me. I have always found the 'usual' hybrids (presumed Herring x Lesser Black-backed Gulls) pretty obvious, but this was something else, maybe a Herring x Yellow-legged?

Earlier, before this headache, I enjoyed an hours sea watch from Spot On and saw:

10 Brent Geese (6w, 2e and 2 in)

14 Common Scoter

5 Red-throated Diver

2 Kittiwake

6+ Razorbill

Six Brent Geese

Yesterdays sea watch was far less exciting, but on Wednesday I struck lucky with a Jack Snipe along with 15+ Common Snipe in a small patch of Juncus near Boshill Cross. Now that was a very handy PWC year tick!
 

A Local Catchup

Well it's about time I blogged about what this blog is about - Axe Birding! There's been a few pics sitting on my memory card for a week or so, and today I had an enjoyable couple of hours out and about on patch.

Clearly the star bird locally is (sorry Mr Ibis) the stunning drake Green-winged Teal that's often on Black Hole Marsh. I say often because some days it just isn't there, like yesterday sadly. He was showing exceptionally well this afternoon though in the far north west corner of the marsh, best viewed from the screen at the start of the walk way to the Island Hide.  Obviously my old Lumix can't compare with the big lenses, but still...

Easily the best views I've ever had of this species. Not only does it show well and close, but it's doing a lot of displaying at the moment - what a show off!  Those white stripes aren't simply white, they're like flipping glow sticks!  A flock of Green-winged Teal in the dark could look surprisingly similar to a rave crowd I reckon.

I best mention the Glossy Ibis now, which is spending pretty much all it's time at Seaton Marshes at the moment.  In any other winter this would easily take the title of 'star bird', but it's picked a winter with stiff competition.

The Water Pipits are still wintering with us too.  It usually takes time to see them, but given patience you should be in luck (really helps if you know the call).  Today I saw seven in the same area as usual, I even managed to get one in the view finder...

Looking typically pale

Another bird that was wintering with us this year was a lone Dark-bellied Brent Goose. I say 'was' because I haven't seen him for a week or so...

And now to gulls. Yes lovely gulls.  Well sadly they haven't delivered for me despite there being a good turn over, we are clearly in the middle of some pretty heavy passage.  There were at least 200 Common Gulls on the Estuary today, along with six Lesser Black-backs, but nothing rare.  Best (or worst?) lately was this ugly hybrid from last week...

Third from left, it was smaller than Herring with yellow-pink legs and a Yellow-legged Gull mantle shade, so I guess a HerringxLBBG?

We've also had small numbers of Med Gulls which is to be expected, although I'm surprised I've not seen more with no more than three on any given day...

Adult Med Gull coming in to land

But quite possibly the best birding news I have to give flew over my house at 8am today, a Meadow Pipit. I know it is just a Meadow Pipit, but this is the first Meadow Pipit over my house since the last bird last autumn - Nov 2015. This means passage, SPRING passage. Wheatears and Sand Martins next... 

I've got a bit of time off work this week which is nice, and the weather is looking pretty decent too.  It's a win win!

A Canadian Beauty

Although there are no where near as many gulls feeding off the beach now (and there hasn't been since Saturday) there does still seem to be plenty of large gulls about. I had a couple of looks along the Estuary yesterday but turned up nothing better than this Yellow-legged Gull wannabe.  I presume it's another one of those HerringxLesser Black-backed Gull hybrids...

These are seemingly more regular that pure Yellow-legged Gulls!

A few of the main give aways that this bird wasn't a Yellow-legged Gull were:

• pinky-yellow legs - short legged too
• mantle colour a tad darker and more 'sooty' than a YLG should be
• overall small size, a tad smaller than Herring Gull
• head streaking
• bill a tad smaller than Herring Gull and LBBG-like head shape

Today though I struck absolute GOLD with my second check of the river just before midday. There were a few more Lesser Black-backed Gulls about which is always a good sign, and at Coronation Corner through the bins an interesting-looking adult white-winged gull had me scrambling for my telescope.... it was a STUNNING adult Kumlien's Gull! Kumlien's Gull is a race of Iceland Gull that breeds in the Arctic region of Canada, and I believe this is the first record of this sub species for the patch!  And here it is...

What an absolute stunner!! Just look at that subtle grey patterning on the primaries. For me also, it's head shape looked a bit different than the average Iceland Gull, with a slightly meaner look to it. Overall it was probably just a tad smaller than Herring Gull - but not by much.

Annoyingly my mobile is not allowing me to text at the moment, so I asked Bun to spread the news on my behalf, but just as I was speaking to him the bloody thing took flight and started flying south. I quickly made for my Lumix and managed to fire off these shots as it went by...

Really pleased with these shots as they show the primary pattern quite nicely

Sadly it kept flying, and as it got towards the sea it seemed to veer east. With all the gulls around though, and more storms over the horizon, there's got to be a chance it will return? I really hope it does!

An adult Kumlien's Gull was seen off Exmouth sea front yesterday, the chances are this is the same bird. I have been sent a couple of images of it though, and to me it looks to have darker (almost black) primary markings. Terry if you read this what do you think?...

Eastern Invasion Finally Reaches The Patch

Thought I was going to have to wait a bit longer for Yellow-browed Warbler to get on my patch year list - but I was pretty confident I was going to get one at some point this autumn considering the monster influx up north a week or two back.

I basically spend all of October and Novemember every year looking for Long-tailed Tit flocks - so I was pleased to hear some as soon as I got out of the car at Lower Bruckland Ponds this afternoon. With so many leaves still on the trees at the moment it's not easy checking tit flocks, so I decided to go in under the trees and look up.  Within a few minutes I got my prize, as a Yellow-browed Warbler popped out literally a few feet in front of me!! Sweeeet.  Better still, as I was watching it, another called from just above and behind me about four or five times!  I fumbled around trying to get some pics, but soon the whole flock moved off and across the pond.  About 15 mins later I had brief and distant views of one again, and heard more calls as the tit flock disappeared south away from the ponds.  Sadly no one else connected, but Dave H heard one a few hours later. The weather was pretty lousy though.

These Yelllow-broweds are our earliest ever, by a day, and represent the eighth and ninth for the patch. The last one I saw here was on 30th Oct 2007 - the two since (both at Beer Head, one in 2010 and one in 2011) were seen only by their finders.

This is the best pic I managed of the bird I saw. Look at that stonking 'super', and you can just see a wing bar... 

You eastern beauty!

Although this photo is pretty rubbish, all the other photos looked like the below, so I'm glad it decided to turn its head...

A Yellow-broweds arse!

There was clearly a bit of a warbler influx today, an early morning sprint around the valley showed 15+ Chiffchaff, and there were at least five at Lower Bruckland Ponds. Other than this, a few Wheatears and Yellow Wags, and my first autumn Stonechat today, migrant passerines haven't exactly been abundant or surprising over the last week. It's been all about wading birds.

Last Friday, a Little Stint and a Ruff appeared on Black Hole Marsh. There's now four Ruff on Black Hole Marsh, and a cracking juv Spotted Redshank which has been around since Saturday. It was quite flighty and vocal today, although looked quite settled on Colyford Marsh scrape this afternoon.  Dunlin numbers have been pretty stable throughout with 20-30, but Bar-tailed Godwit numbers seem to be ever-increasing with an impressive 11 on the Estuary yesterday! Wildfowl numbers have also increased dramatically recently, with a juv Pintail last Thursday and five Shoveler on Monday being notable. Still hoping for a Pochard!

I have been keeping an eye on the gulls too. There's not been that many to look at sadly, but amongst them yesterday was another one of those 'presumed' Lesser Black-backedxHerring Gull hybrids...

Not quite a Yellow-legged Gull

Washed out yellow legs, short wings and legs, smallish head and bill, overall small(ish) size, head streaking, wing tip pattern and mantle colour all give aways that it's not the 'real McCoy'.

I've been disappointed by the sea, although tomorrow looks like it might be worth a look.  The best I managed was yesterday morning when easterly gull passage included my first Med for several weeks (an adult), a Common and 11 Black-heads, plus two Sandwich Terns. Birds flying west included two Teal and two Common Scoter.

That's all the birdie stuff dealt with, but before I sign off I must mention that since the last post I've added an extra year to my age. Birthday means birthday cake - and when your fiancee is a professional cake maker this is what you get...

They tasted as good as they look!