Day Out in Norfolk

I headed out this morning with John and Graeme, deciding to spend the day a couple of hours away in Norfolk. Remarkably, it's the first time I headed up here since the empidonax action in September 2010. We had a nice roadside Barn Owl on the way up, before the first stop at Cley NWT. The 1st-winter Western Sandpiper was on show immediately on Pat's Pool. I could give you a lowdown of the features that I should have seen if it was a little bit closer and it wasn't such a lousy autumn. But I won't as everybody's probably well-versed in winter plumaged Western/Semi-p Sand. I certainly am, and all I have to say is subjective, scapulars and suite of features.

It was good to see a few old faces in the hide, and one of these Mike S, picked out a first-winter Tundra Bean Goose distantly from Daukes Hide. Again, lousy for photography. Stuff like Golden Plovers, Avocets, Dark-bellied Brents and a Water Rail were all nice to see too.

We had a quick search for a Ross' Goose near Holt but struggled to find many Pinkfeet, so it was on with the wild goose chase to the other side of Norwich. And at Buckenham Marshes, the adult Lesser White-fronted Goose was seen immediately in amongst the wintering Taiga Bean Geese. Pretty dark and diminutive, with a nice white blaze, it was a little bit distant to make out the minutae in the strong breeze. Perhaps last winter I'd been a bit too quick to judge, but according to my companions back in the day the Yare Valley was up there with Slimbridge for going to see your gen LWFGs. And as a carrier species - with both being taiga geese - you could perhaps argue a case. Mind, there have been feral birds locally and The Netherlands for sure will have a few less than wild (as well as wild) ones roaming around too.

Right then, the weather had been poor all day so the late afternoon shift in the hail and rain wasn't going to get great photographic results. But with news of a potential homeyeri Great Grey Shrike near Fakenham, we headed there from East Norfolk and arrived at its chosen, windswept field. After a bit, it showed in the gloom. There'll be plenty more on this elsewhere, and fair play to the guys who flagged this first-winter bird up. Apart from having the prior knowledge of them 'being paler, more white in the wing and tail' than nominate birds, I had no further wisdom when I viewed the bird: -


Initial impression reminiscent of a Lesser Grey Shrike, presumably due a slight peach hue to the underparts in the poor light, and the extensive white bases to the primaries that were about half the length of the exposed secondaries



Appeared to perhaps be pale mantled, though the light was pretty changeable. Lores appeared pale, with bill base pale too. Note the obvious white rump here and the appearance of a 2nd wing patch on the greater coverts.

 

In the gloom, I couldn't make out much on the amount of white in its tail (though observers earlier in the day state that the two pairs of outermost feathers were white) but for sure you can see a clean, extensive white scapular patch here.

Interestingly, despite a fair few claims of this subspecies, the Finnish Rarities committee has only accepted three homeyeri Great Grey Shrikes - all of them trapped. In the north and west of their range, they do apparently overlap with nominate excubitor too so perhaps we shouldn't get too hasty in being definitive on this bird just yet, interesting though it may be. Another educational experience, perhaps.

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.

Local Bully Boys

Hope that everyone that reads this has had a decent Christmas. Having got back from Toronto late on 23rd, I spent a few hours on Christmas Eve doing the neglected patch before getting amongst it with wrapping the presents. Anyway, I'd promised some of my Canadian friends a few 1st-winter (European) Herring Gull shots so that they'd provide a decent like-for-like on the smithsonianus we saw together at Niagara a couple of days previously. All these shots taken on 24th December.

A particularly advanced pale individual; note the frosting of the greater-coverts straight to the bases. Lacks the often dark bases that you see in smithsonianus

A fairly dark, relatively immature individual perhaps emanating from a more northerly latitude. But plumage wise, a typical bird - note the shelling on the tertials protruding well towards the base.

 

Dark underwing coverts, but argenteus and argentatus generally lack that velvet smooth texture to the underparts that smithsonianus show. Also note the distinct lack of an all dark tail and palish undertail-coverts.

A near-adult, though the head streaking is just that - it's not blotching. Those legs just don't get close to that bubblegum pink I saw in all the Niagara smithsonianus. In flight, dark area on primary-coverts suggested a 4cy.

Other than these gulls, the patch was really quiet with the lack of cold weather. Just the usual suspects around, and even the Mediterranean Gull did a no show in a brief look on the lake at Burgess Park.

Last Day with the Niagara River Gulls

Thursday was my last day in Canada, as I'm sitting here on my sofa in London having travelled back earlier today (Friday). I must say that, for a brief week long trip on what I would term a 'non-birding holiday', it was brilliant. Toronto and the Niagara area had copious amounts of the stuff I'm really into (such as gulls) backed up with phenomenal numbers of waterfowl that I don't see any old day back here in London.

My final day was spent with a group of Ontario and Buffalo birders who spend much of their time in larid heaven on the Niagara river. I learnt a hell of a lot with them on Thayer's Gulls, Kumlien's and the different populations of American Herring Gulls - much more than what us Europeans can do by just thumbing through the good old identification articles and odd lone individuals. I'll do some more stuff on this sometime soon.

Anyway, my day was spent at a few spots along the Niagara river. Sir Adam Beck (pictured above) is the place for large gulls, and a site where I saw at least two Thayer's Gulls (an adult and a second-winter) and half a dozen Kumlien's Gulls. There was an adult Little Gull just upriver at the Whirlpool in amongst the copious amounts of Bonaparte's Gulls, while the wall at Chippawa is the other decent site for a bit of large larus action - have a look at this bad boy below to get you going...

If I was on the Thames (which obviously I wasn't), I'd be putting this down as a hybrid Herring x LBB; and that's kind of (well, AHG x LBB) what I assume this bird is too with LBB Gull numbers having increased dramatically in Ontario in recent years - I only saw a third-winter bird (looked like a typical graellsii in mantle colour and structure/bulk). So this hybrid bird was evidently darker mantled than all the smickers, its legs a tepid yellow (with a hint of flesh too), pale iris, head streaking like a LBB and a relatively pronounced tertial step.

There literally are 1000s of American Herring Gulls to scan through, and although variable one thing that really did strike me was that the feet were a real rich bubblegum pink in all adults, without exception - much more standardised than the array of leg colour you get through argenteus and argentatus. The birds are distant, but here are a few smickers for now.

Galaxy smooth...

A 'classic' 2nd-winter - look at that all dark tail, retained greater-covert bar and dark secondaries. A monster like this wouldn't have any problems this side of the pond.

They don't all look like this by the way, despite what we're led to believe. This is a very extreme example

It wasn't all gulls, though it nearly was. I managed to see a couple of Dark-eyed Juncos and an American Robin while looking through the gulls. And a quick stop off at some feeders in Chippawa produced White-breasted Nuthatch, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker and American Goldfinch - all good Nearctic fare for me. But if it's one species I'll remember the Niagara river for, it's those tern-like small gulls and I got my fill again.

Finally, I would just like to extend my thanks to the expert knowledge and hospitality that all the birders showed during the trip - Jean Iron was fantastic throughout and along with Willie D'Anna, provided me with plenty of info pre and during my trip; their knowledge of the gulls was immense too, along with Ron Pittaway, Betsy Potter, Declan Troy and Kevin McLaughlin - who I could have talked all day with regarding AHGs. Thank you all, and Karen really appreciated the way you looked after her too.

L to R: Betsy, Jean, Ron, Willie, Declan, me and Kevin

Niagara Introduction

So the first day in Niagara has drawn to a close. We're staying in Niagara-on-the-lake, a beautiful town that lies on where the Niagara river flows into Lake Ontario. The weather has been pretty lousy today but it has still been possible to rack up some interesting species. Most notably, there have been more Bonaparte's Gulls than you could shake a stick at. In fact, on the evening flyby (birds fly down the Niagara river late afternoon and roost on Lake Ontario) there were probably in excess of 3,000 along with a nice adult Little Gull, standing out markedly by its obviously dark underwing in contrast to all the Bonaparte's. There was also a sizeable flock of Bonaparte's hovering over a shoal of small fish near Miller's Creek Marina (between Niagara and Fort Erie), where it was possible to study the species at close range despite the poor light.

Note the rather dark bar on the underwing, a feature I don't recall seeing so obviously previously

Like the vagrants I've seen in Britain and Ireland, leg colour really does vary from bubblegum pink to bright orange; probably more birds in the pink...

 The legendary Adam Beck HEP was pretty decent too, although the large gulls in the river at the bottom were rather more distant. However, it was good to be able to study American Herring Gulls, particularly adults, where the primary patterns seemed pretty variable with some birds almost argentatus-like with reduced black in the wingtips while other birds only had small mirrors on the outer primaries. Anyway, I saw half a dozen Kumlien's Gulls of varying darkness too along with my first Great Black-backed Gulls of the trip.

Ducks were scattered right the way along the river, mainly Goldeneye, Buffleheads and Long-tailed Ducks with smaller numbers of Red-breasted Mergs and Goosanders. And, just outside our hotel, there was a nice close pair of deglandi White-winged Scoter late afternoon - good enough to see the drake's bill and brown flanks. Other birds noted included a showy Northern Cardinal, Blue Jay, American Goldfinch and American Crow.

Northern Cardinal

That's a better one

Having complained yesterday about the relative subtlety in the kumlieni at Ashbridge's, I had a stroll down the Toronto waterfront for a couple of hours just before I left. The aim was to photograph the Ring-billed Gulls and Long-tailed Ducks in the lovely light, but I managed more than that by chancing upon another Kumlien's Gull - again an adult, but this time rather less subtle (with nice mirrors on P6-P10) and a really good bird to see.

And here's another Long-tailed Duck...

More of Toronto's waterfront birds

I've really enjoyed my time here in Toronto, with today being our last full day here before we head around Lake Ontario to the natural wonder of Niagara Falls and of course one of the best spots for gulls in North America apparently. So today was a bit of a casual birding affair, with a long walk around the city culminating in a brief stop at Ashbridge's Bay Park. Like all of Toronto's water front, this place was packed full of ducks - the commonest species being Buffleheads, Long-tailed Ducks and Red-breasted Mergansers. And wherever there is food to be had, those ringos sniffle around your feet at literally a few inches distance. I could actually have grabbed one of those crazy mofos today, but Karen didn't want me to. So I didn't.

Anyway, in amongst all the Ring-billed Gulls was a northern beauty - a nice adult Kumlien's Gull. Well, I say nice but I would have loved something looking like that adult a couple of winters back in Galway. All the Kumlien's that I've seen and found have never been anything like approaching thayeri in wing tip colouration, and this boy was the same. Nice dark shafts to P8-P10 with only discernible subterminal bands on P7 and P8. There's a quality Kumlien's vs. Iceland Gull article recently written by Newfoundland gull afficionado Dave Brown here, and he mentions although the iris colour of kumlieni is variable, they all show a bit of dark peppering - just like this bird.

Also at Ashbridge's, amongst the confiding Mallards and Buffleheads (that incidentally did not come to bread), was this hybrid drake Black Duck x Mallard.

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