juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls - July photos

So since the last update, it’s been more of the same. On Sunday morning, I had a pretty impressive count of four Yellow-legged Gulls by my flat in Rotherhithe – an adult and three juveniles. I then headed off to Dungeness and spent an enjoyable afternoon with Mick S and Richard S by the fishing boats – 5 Yellow-legged Gulls (an adult and 4 juveniles) and a first-summer Mediterranean Gull the highlights. Having finished for the summer on Tuesday, baiting the local seagulls (that incidentally haven’t attacked me despite all the media hysteria) today and yesterday produced a single Yellow-legged Gull on both days. I also headed to Greenwich yesterday where on the mud by the O2 there were yet more Yellow-legged Gulls – eight in total (two adults, a first-summer and five juveniles). This included an intriguing juvenile, with easily the palest underwing I’d ever seen on the species: -

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich 22nd July 2015 - the underwing is most atypical for the species but the tail pattern, tailing off in broadness on the outer rectrices, and chequered greater-coverts are both pro-michahellis features along with the notching on the lower scapulars.

Anyway, some of you may be relieved by what I’m going to say now. There’ll be no gull focused posts for a few weeks as I’m heading off for a bit – but for those of you who’ve enjoyed the juvenile Yellow-legged Gull season here are a few of the highlights since 1^st July: -

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich 1st July 2015 - first of the season (above two images)

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich 4th July 2015 

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Dungeness 5th July 2015 - note the dark underwing and barred axillaries

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Dungeness 5th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Dungeness 5th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Rotherhithe 7th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Rotherhithe 8th July 2015 - note the more heavily barred tail compared to the image above; a way of trying to note different individuals on a daily basis

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich 11th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich 12th July 2015 - a fairly pale looking individual

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich 12th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich 18th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Rotherhithe 18th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Rotherhithe 18th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Dungeness 19th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Dungeness 19th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Dungeness 19th July 2015

Yellow-legged Gull heaven in southeast London

Since the last update, I've tried to get myself out locally as much as possible. It's a good time of year here in Rotherhithe and it seems also in Greenwich. That is, if gulls are your thing. With quite a few non-birding commitments last weekend, I decided to spend the time I had at Greenwich by the O2 - and along with several ringed gulls, on the Saturday there were eight Yellow-legged Gulls (a near-adult, two 1st-summers and five juveniles) and on Sunday even more - 13 birds (two near-adults, a 1st-summer and ten or so juveniles).

juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls Greenwich, London 11th and 12th July 2015

The working week was more hectic than it needed to be given it was the last full week of term; however on Tuesday evening the first Yellow-legged Gull - with yellow legs - in Rotherhithe this year was on the mud by the Hilton Hotel. The next evening there was a juvenile there too, along with an adult Common Gull.

sub-adult Yellow-legged Gull Rotherhithe, London 14th July 2015

And on to yesterday, Saturday. What is evident now is the upsurge in local juvenile gulls - the mud by the O2 yesterday morning held four juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls, but they were now outnumbered by juvenile Herring Gulls (along with a couple of typically dusky juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gulls).

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich, London 18th July 2015

Back in Rotherhithe, a bit of bread chucking on the River Thames near my flat produced the results quickly - a Norwegian white ringed Black-headed Gull and then two juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls.

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull Rotherhithe, London 18th July 2015

adult Black-headed Gull Rotherhithe, London 18th July 2015; ringed as a chick in Oslo, Norway in August 2011 and not seen since then

So that's that. I'll be heading off to Dungeness shortly for another session of gulls by the fishing boats with Mick S and Richard S...

Yellow-legged Gulls and old friends in Rotherhithe

There was quite a bit of gull movement on the river by my flat this week, especially on Tuesday and Wednesday. Post-work juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls on each day were nice, different individuals and both enjoying the daily rations of bread that I provide!
juvenile Yellow-legged Gull bird 1 - 7th July 2015

juvenile Yellow-legged Gull bird 2 - 8th July 2015

Compared to the 1st bird, note the more uniform dark tertials and greater barring on the rectrices

This evening, a 2nd-summer Herring Gull with a NTGG ring was on Greenland Dock - a bit of geeking at my spreadsheet when I got home showed that I'd seen it at Dungeness last November!

2nd-summer Herring Gull D9DT - ringed at Rainham Tip, London on 30th November 2013 and then I saw it at Dungeness on 9th November 2014. Nice to be reacquainted!

Hopefully this weekend will be another gull filled one.

A few birds starting to move locally

That's another weekend gone, and there has been a little bit more happening locally here in southeast London. I was trying to summon up ideas to get out into the countryside, but unless you're into flowers and the like, this time of year is best to just put in the hours locally and save up the effort for when things start moving later on.

And there are quite a lot of scruffy looking gulls here at the moment to keep me busy. Week nights have been spent going through them in Rotherhithe, mainly as they chill out on the moored barges by Greenland Quay. And then today and yesterday, I walked around the O2 Arena to the area of mud at the end that's exposed at low tide; yesterday lots of gulls but nothing of interest and then today, very different - 5 Yellow-legged Gulls (near adult, three 2nd-summers and a 1st-summer) plus a couple of NTGG rings and a new scheme too on a Lesser Black-backed Gull that I'm awaiting details on. There were also two Reed Warblers singing in the reeds by Antony Gormley's Quantum Cloud sculpture.

near adult Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich, London 28th June 2015 - same bird in both above photos; note the dark on the primary-coverts, reduced mirrors and dull yellow legs

2nd-summer Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich, London 28th June 2015

1st-summer Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich, London 28th June 2015

On Friday, I also added a new ringing scheme to Rotherhithe - a yellow ringed 2nd-summer Herring Gull ending in 'B' that'll have been ringed by the East Anglia Gull Group, most likely at Milton Tip near Cambridge (still awaiting details though).

2nd-summer Herring Gull Rotherhithe, London 26th June 2015 - 5V0B, ringed by the East Anglia Gull Group

Always something locally

It has been a relatively quiet week, and having had my fill of Cretzschmar's Bunting on these shores on Orkney a few years ago, local birding was the flavour. And it was quiet, but quiet isn't always a bad thing. Time to relax, soak in those messy looking larids.

Local gulls haven't been too bad, with new birds moving through. Had a peak of 18 Lesser Black-backed Gulls on Tuesday in Rotherhithe, whilst three or four Great Black-backed Gulls have been lingering about amongst the knackered looking sub-adult Herring Gulls. An afternoon and early evening at Crossness produced the first juvenile Black-headed Gull (they don't breed there, and they're completely absent from Rotherhithe this time of year) along with a load of Lapwing - presumed failed breeders - and an adult Yellow-legged Gull.

All the above sound pretty mundane, and I guess it is. But it's not that bad - everything at Rotherhithe is a walk away, and with the long evenings and work (comparatively) quiet, I'm managing a fair bit of birding time. So here are a few regulars I'm seeing at the moment...

Herring Gull M0KT (1st-summer) - ringed at Pitsea, Essex on 27 September 2014, seen London Bridge on 19 April 2015 and then in Rotherhithe on 10 May 2015, 16 May 2015, 17 May 2015, 6 June 2015, 7 June 2015, 14 June 2015 and 18 June 2015.

Herring Gull M2LT (1st-summer) - ringed at Rainham, London on 2 January 2015, then seen in Rotherhithe on 29 March 2015, 18 June 2015 and today.

Herring Gull X2DT (3rd-summer) - ringed at Rainham, London 16 November 2013 and seen by me at Pitsea, Essex on 1 February 2014 and then at Dungeness, Kent on 14th February 2014 - before turning up in Rotherhithe on 18 June 2015.

A quiet May weekend

Spring birding is always hit and miss, particularly if like me you're largely confined to weekends. Most people look outside and smile when it's sunny, but what that sun usually means in the context of my local birding is no birds. And that was the case at Crossness yesterday, where it felt like mid-June as opposed to mid-May with swifts buzzing about and the Common Terns well and truly settled in to nesting at Barking Bay. The annual build up of non-breeding gulls in Rotherhithe continued apace with about 200 Herring Gulls present yesterday, and with 3 NTGG rings there was at least something to get me going...

Two ringed Herring Gulls Greenland Dock, Rotherhithe 16th May 2015 - the 2nd-summer (left) K9HT was last here on 22nd June 2014 (having been ringed at Rainham in November 2013) while the 1st-summer (right) was ringed at Pitsea in September 2014 and has been about in Rotherhithe since 4th May 2015.

Today, I mixed it up a little and Karen and I headed out of London for the day. We walked around Rye Harbour, East Sussex which is always nice - not many birds but plenty of birders rather surprisingly. There were a couple of first-summer Spoonbills present on the flood north of Ternery Pool, with one of them ringed, while other highlights included a Cuckoo sallying from fence posts, a couple of Wheatears and a small flock of Bar-tailed Godwits. Little Terns were about in small numbers, and there were a fair few Common and Sandwich Terns, but I was left a bit cold by the lack of Mediterranean Gulls compared to a handful of years ago - just a handful seen today.

We then went to Dungeness, as much to satisfy Karen's request for a Dover Sole sandwich from The Fish Shack as my gull fix. Mid May's not exactly the best time for huge numbers, so three ringed birds (two Danish Great Black-backed and a Sussex ringed Herring) had to suffice.

1st-summer Great Black-backed Gull JZ042 Dungeness 17th May 2015 - ringed as a chick at Nordre Rønner, Læsø, Nordjylland, Denmark on 1st July 2014 then seen at Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, France from 2nd January to 9th February 2015, then Outreau, Pas-de-Calais, France 14th February and 14th March 2015 before being first seen at Dungeness, Kent on 25th April 2015.

Returning to Rotherhithe early evening, a couple of Swifts were about along with two NTGG Herring Gulls on the barges on the River Thames. If only the birding this weekend could have been more exciting...

Back to normality (with a few gulls thrown in)

I thought I'd post something today. Not because I went to Norfolk and saw the Citril Finch like most; for once I could sit back and relax having seen the Fair Isle bird. Though I did at one point nearly set off for it. Glad I didn't though, as I had a nice little spell on the river by my flat in Rotherhithe this evening - the first Yellow-legged Gull of the year, 4 NTGG ringed Herring Gulls (including a 2nd-winter that had been to France and back) and four Swallows through too.

1st-winter Yellow-legged Gull Rotherhithe, London 10th May 2015

Earlier today, I spent a fair bit of time at Crossness where it was absolutely dead. In fact, it was even worse than last week's Bank Holiday Monday and that was bad. When you're talking about Oystercatcher as the best wader of the day, enough said. However, after getting married last weekend and the build up to it, I must admit that it is nice to have a bit of time again to throw away seeing nothing around London.

1st-winter Herring Gull M0KT - ringed at Pitsea, Essex on 27th September 2014 and then seen at London Bridge on 19th April 2015; present in Rotherhithe on 4th and 10th May 2015.

1st-winter Herring Gull M7MT - ringed at Pitsea, Essex on 21st March 2015 and present in Rotherhithe on 26th April and 10th May 2015.

Hudsonian Godwit in Somerset... just!

This hobby is meant to be pleasurable, a distraction from the stresses and strains of everyday life apparently. It isn't. Yesterday, for example was a case in point. Karen was away for the day, and had left me in charge of doing two very important things - it was our final chance to pick up the wedding banns from the church while at the same time, a boiler was being fitted and some strength was needed to transport the old one out. To cap it all off, I needed to be in Woking for the evening to help transport some bits and bobs back into London. I normally don't have commitments, let alone three in one day.

So I really didn't appreciate the call from Bob W (first time I've seen RBA broadcasting news well in advance of BirdGuides, since I relinquished my pager a year or two ago), informing me of a Hudsonian Godwit in Somerset. An easy twitch in normal circumstances with no water to cross. Anyway, I was well and truly screwed as those wedding banns just had to be picked up; there really wasn't an option. So that was fine, I'd be off just after 10am. Or perhaps not, what with the church being a bit laissez faire with their punctuality combined with the old boiler not being as easy to extricate as originally thought. I ended up leaving southeast London at 12.15pm. Sub-optimal, and a Common Sandpiper on Greenland Dock - a decent bird for the patch - did its best to cheer me up.

Fortunately, traffic was very average as I headed through London town and once on the M4, it's remarkable how close you can make Bristol with a bit of downward force on the right hand pedal. And so it was that I arrived at Meare Heath at 3.25pm - probably Britain's most impressive reedbed reserve these days? It felt totally continental, whether that be Med style or Danube style I'm not sure. What's for certain is that, as well as the hoped for yank, I saw 3 Cranes, 3 Great White Egrets, a Spoonbill, a handful of Bittern sightings and a Wood Sandpiper - all in the space of a couple of hours.

And yes, Britain's third Hudsonian Godwit and the first since I've been out of nappies was gladly received. I was mega excited this time last year when I saw the species for the first time in Texas, so to unblock this golden oldie in Britain was pretty special - it's not the firsts you dream of, it's birds like Hudwits that really get you going. Not the brightest of individuals and presumably a female, I watched it at mid distance for just over half an hour as it fed at the back of the pool enjoying its intricately patterned upperparts and undertail coverts, as well as its nice black underwing coverts.

With the weather and light poor, I was just waiting to get my camera out on it... as surely it was going to stick about for the rest of the day. But at 4.10pm it suddenly decided to depart with a handful of Black-tailed Godwits. They banked around, looking to land before returning a short while later. But pretty quickly, the Hudsonian Godwit was off again and headed fast west into the distance. And hasn't been seen again as yet. Good views of the underwing I guess, but I was left cold on the pictures front.

I guess that with good views and no photos, I'm still a birder at heart. That's quite satisfying really. Two British Isles ticks in eight days - that's one more than I got the whole of last year. And a new Western Palearctic bird to boot; can't be bad! And with all chores done (including getting back to Woking for 8pm), and the bird seen, all turned out well. If not slightly stressful.

A Lesser Whitethroat in Russia Dock Woodland was today's highlight among marathon fever here in Rotherhithe, as well my first ringed Herring Gull here in just under a month.

1st-winter Herring Gull M7MT Greenland Dock, Rotherhithe 26th April 2015 - ringed at Pitsea, Essex in March 2015

Rotherhithe today

There's always something rewarding about seeing stuff out of the ordinary in such an urban, birdless hinterland such as Rotherhithe. And predictably, if you're not looking through the gulls or ducks in the winter, you'll see nothing. So that's why I only rarely venture away from the waterside at this time of year. With only a limited amount of free time today, I stuck to the Thames and had a couple of Yellow-legged Gulls - a third-winter and a brief second-winter.

Third-winter Yellow-legged Gull chilling on the mud by the Hilton Hotel - same bird as I saw on my birthday 3 weeks ago.

Trying to boss the show... until the GBBGs turned up.

2nd-winter Yellow-legged Gull bombing upriver; a different bird to the two last Sunday. Again note the lack of any mirror on P10

And that's another weekend over and back to the birding abyss until next Saturday morning.

More Rings

More rings, but not on the bills this time. Patchwork was slow this morning, so I resorted to doing a few slow donuts around the roosting BHGs in Tesco car park as I spotted a couple of ringed individuals. Since getting my DSLR earlier this year, one of its main uses is looking at detail you just can't pick up in the field. And for metal ringed BHGs, it comes into its own.

The bad boy above shows a nice piece of bling on its right ankle. So, in the past, I'd have put in my notebook something such as 'including an individual metal ringed on its lower right tarsus'. Well, with a bit of papping at all angles it's now possible to get these sly old dogs nailed. The tell tale 'SW7' tells you that it's a British-ringed bird (the British Natural History Museum is located in Kensington SW7). I managed to get the full ring number off it too.

However, one of the other BHGs has had me head scratching. Again a metal ringed bird, this time on its lower left tarsus. I've got its complete ring number and after a bit of sleuthing, think it's a Belgian-ringed bird (check out this one for a comparison).

you can just make out 'SSELS'; presumably the BRU are just out of show

And I did break things up a bit on the gull front, well sort of. There was no sign of the Med Gull at Burgess Park and, on the way to Cross Ness, I took in a drake Mandarin en-route at Brookmill Park, Lewisham. Cross Ness was dead, apart from the usuals including a load of Teal and Dunlin. And there were few gulls at Crayford.

Mandarin with no bling

So I turned back to Rotherhithe and spent the last couple of hours mooching around Russia Dock Woodland, where I recorded my first Kingfisher of the winter on the patch. Normally there is just one around so I was pretty made up with a 2nd bird at Norway Dock late afternoon. Little else apart from a couple of Goldcrests and a flock of c.50 House Sparrows.