77 wingers so far...

I've been in Ireland since late Friday night, doing a bit of a tour along the west coast. Earlier today, the three of us (me, Alan C and Staines) hit Nimmo's Pier for a bit of a winger photo feast. Loads of signs up telling the locals not to feed swans etc with white, stale or mouldy bread so we whacked a load of wholemeal into the melee and got a pretty average 6 Icelands (4 juvs and 2 second-winters) and a couple of adult Ring-billed Gulls.

Mr Biscuit

Adult ringer - does what it says on the tin

We had a quick cruise west along Galway bay to Rossaveal where, amongst a load of Herrings, was a solitary juvenile Glaucous Gull; a pretty poor haul compared to what I've had here in the past. Rahasane Turlough was full of birds - 1000s of Wigeon and Teal - but no sign of the hoped for drake American Wigeon. We then headed into Clare, where the highlight of a rather tough afternoon was an adult Ring-billed Gull on the beach at Lahinch. No sign of any Surfers in the bay though.

I spent the previous three days up north, starting with a bit of a dip at Enniskillen where we had a go for the putative Thayer's Gull seen earlier last week. Sligo held half a dozen Iceland Gulls, including these bad boys on the river: -

adult Iceland Gull

a dopy looking juvenile Iceland Gull

There were 3 Richardson's Canada Geese at Ballintemple, Sligo - status quo for this fine site, in amongst the masses of Barnacle Geese. And Killybegs held 26 wingers too (20 Icelands and 6 Glaucs) plus a hybrid presumed Glauc x Herring.

Mayo was good value, and as we headed into the county on Sunday we stopped off in Balina where there was a fairly retarded 2nd-winter Ring-billed Gull complete with a pinkish toned bill and largely dark eye - plenty of the birds I saw in Canada back in December, and the vagrants I've seen over here previously, are much more adult-type in appearance.

What a retard

Just to the north, Killala Bay produced a quality Black Brant in amongst the Pale-bellied Brents as well as further Glaucs and Icelands.

Little and large

After another fitful night's sleep in accommodation (my mother and Karen will be proud!), we headed out to the wild, wild west and did The Mullet where there were wingers everywhere - Icelands seemed to love the fields where we saw 16 in total while the windswept coasts were where those big beastly Glaucs were hanging out, including one on a rather long dead whale carcass.

JJ had raved about a large, long-necked Canada Goose he'd seen a few weeks back at Termoncarragh and after a fair bit of searching we managed to find it in amongst a mixed bag of geese including 2 Tundra Beans (presumably an absolute mega Mayo record), 3 Greenland Whitefronts and a few Icelandic Greylags.

After the Mullet, we headed south taking in Carrowmore Lake where a couple of Ring-necked Ducks were hanging about with the Tufted Ducks, before heading onto Achill Island for the last couple of hours of light. Checking a fish factory was really disappointing, though there were a couple of Glaucs in the scenic setting of Keel beach before finishing off as per usual with the drake Black Duck at Sruhill Lough.

So, to date, nothing amazingly special but relaxing, good company and 77 white-winged gulls so far. See what the next few days bring - just doing this post from The Lighthouse Inn in Kilbaha with a decent pint of Guiness next to me...Loop and the surroundings in the morning.

Cracking cach in the snow

So this year's helping of snow comes to South London and, well, I can say that they'd learnt from their mistakes. It was with remarkable ease that I got to Crossness this morning, taking little over my usual time. So well done to Southwark, Lewisham and Greenwich for doing a good job and keeping the roads going.

And a good job I got to Crossness as I located an absolutely cracking 1st-winter Caspian Gull off the golf centre early afternoon - the first 1st-winter I'd seen here for ages, and easily the best age in terms of looks for this cracking species gull. Just have a look at these shots and tell me that Casps aren't totally beautiful: -

As obvious as Casps get!

A Caspian torpedo... nice dark centred tertials lacking any notching

Scaps here show nice anchors and transverse barring, as you'd expect

Noticeably white-headed with a long, parallel-sided bill lacking much in the way of an obvious gonys

Matchstick legs

Black primaries and secondaries contrastingly nicely with the chocolate brown upperwing coverts; also nice pale tips to the greater coverts. A whitish rump contrasting with the black tail band

Not the cleanest Casp in terms of its underwing... but palish central area

Normally a bit of the white stuff causes a bit of movement, and for sure that happened today. There weren't any wild geese or swans, but 11 Golden Plover over by the outfall mid-morning were the first I'd seen at Crossness, and for John A too, the first truly on the patch (as birds at Rainham can sometimes be seen from the Belvedere end of the Thames Path). I managed to miss 5 Goldeneye off the golf centre just before I arrived, but several Grey Plovers (at least 7) were mincing about and the Bar-tailed Godwit was still on the foreshore. A few Meadow Pipits and a Skylark moving overhead, and a load of Snipe frozen out and on the foreshore.

Common Snipe on the foreshore

A bit of colour

I spent the day locally again, and in the bitter cold had a few bits and bobs along The Thames. The early morning highlight were 8 obliging Grey Plovers, the most I'd ever seen at Crossness.

Grey Plover on a grey day

There were a handful of Yellow-legged Gulls hanging around too, and given their individual distinctiveness, at least a 1st-winter and two 2nd-winters were some of the usual suspects. It was decent to see 20 or so Tufted Ducks over the river - evidence of a freeze up elsewhere - but John A and I were in the paddocks (where the highlight was a Stonechat!) when 3 Smew may have flown downriver, as they passed Rainham mid-morning. I also had one colour-ringed Herring Gull (probably a Suffolk bird) before I sacked it off as the tide was high and not much was moving.

A check of the local water bodies revealed a fair bit of ice, but there were 30 or so Pochard on Southmere, a 2nd-winter Yellow-legged Gull as well as a couple of larids with rings - one predictable NTGG bird and then a blue-ringed LBB Gull. It'll be interesting to find out where this bird came from as I've not had one of these before: -

Blue-ringed 2nd-winter LBBG

John A and I then headed to Crayford, and checked the area around Viridor recycling centre. There was at least one nice adult Mediterranean Gull and three ringed Herring Gulls (one NTGG bird and two from Sussex): -

Sussex-ringed Herring Gulls (white rings with black writing) are quite regular in the London area during the winter

Retarded 2cy Common Gull... an interesting bird

We headed back to Crossness, where we met up with Ian M, and saw a nice Bar-tailed Godwit in amongst a good count of 266 Blackwits on the foreshore. It appeared diminutive amongst the Blackwits, but didn't lack agression - perhaps it had a complex, just like many small men do?

A pretty unusual midwinter Barwit at Crossness

colour-ringed Blackwit - think it's from a Suffolk ringing project...

With not much else moving at Crossness, I spent the last hour or so at Rotherhithe in the hope of some cold weather something or other. Not to be, although the Tufted Duck flock has built up to a winter high with 134 counted (84 on Greenland Dock) as well as 2 drake Pochard; loads of gulls on the Thames and a couple of Egyptian Geese looking as stupid as ever on Canada Water.

Frustratingly, probably the best birds of the day eluded me - as I was heading to Crossness early on, I had a skein of grey geese (presumably Pinks) north over Woolwich. But by the time I'd stopped and grabbed my bins, they were too far off to be sure.

Marsh gull?

Last night, one of my mates Lee Gregory emailed me a couple of shots of an interesting looking, dark mantled and bubblegum pink-legged Herring-type Gull he'd seen at his local roost. Not that I could tell him much he didn't know anyway (as he's one of the best, most understated birders I know) - I'd never seen Vega Gull, and he'd done all the homework already.

Anyway, a feature that Lee's bird showed was an obvious reddish orbital ring. Have a look at this adult Herring Gull that was ringed on the tip on the tip on 14th January, and I'd previously mentioned I'd do a quick post on it. Presumably it emanates from a Baltic population - it was relatively dark mantled with a pretty prominent red/orange eye ring. The wing tip pattern is between argentatus and argenteus.

Note the obviously bright orbital ring

Obvious white tip to P10 like an argentatus; dark notch to the outer web of P5 that you'd expect on an argenteus

Again, the obvious red/orange orbital ring visible here

Be interesting to see where YJ1T turns up; look at the obviously pink legs

It's either a hybrid (presumably a back cross) or its a bird from the omissus zone in southern Sweden - apparently these birds can either have pink or yellow legs, as over time plenty of argentatus genes have infiltrated into the former subspecies omissus. Paul Roper was sufficiently interested in this bird that a colour ring was whacked on it, in the hope that a ringing recovery may shed further light.... interesting stuff.

Going Dutch

Got the history of this Herring Gull '1A' that I saw on the tip on Saturday: -

Ringed as a pullus on 2nd July 2007 by Roland-Jan Buijs at Vlissingen-Oost, Zeeland, The Netherlands. It has since spent much of its time on the European North Sea coast, in Belgium, France and The Netherlands. Here are its full details: -

14-2-2008 Blaringhem, Nord, FRANCE

23-5-2008 Westkapelle, Zeeland, NETHERLANDS

5-6-2008 Westkapelle, Zeeland, NETHERLANDS

8-8-2008 Blankenberge, West-Vlaanderen, BELGIUM

13-8-2008 Zeebrugge, West-Vlaanderen, BELGIUM

17-8-2008 Blankenberge, West-Vlaanderen, BELGIUM

10-10-2008 Zeebrugge, West-Vlaanderen, BELGIUM

29-1-2009 Dannes, Pas-de-Calais, FRANCE

26-2-2009 Dannes, Pas-de-Calais, FRANCE

10-7-2009 Blankenberge, West-Vlaanderen, BELGIUM

30-8-2009 Blankenberge, West-Vlaanderen, BELGIUM

10-4-2010 Westkapelle, Zeeland, NETHERLANDS

22-11-2011 Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, FRANCE

28-1-2012 Pitsea, Essex, ENGLAND

Interesting stuff. Thanks to Roland-Jan Buijs for sending through all this info.

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.

Garbage gulls

Back on the tip again today, once again really enjoyable and got more involved than the last time. An adult Med Gull soared around early on as we were setting up - shame it didn't end up in our catch as I'd loved to have seen one close up. But here it is flying around.

We did a couple of catches, mainly Herrings today with a fair few of those real brutes - GBBGs. Nice to see them in the hand like this: -

Being obvious and pretty much monotypic, you don't really look too hard at GBBGs - but good to see a spread wing 

2cy GBBG with its new bling

 And also one of the birds in the nets was a Norwegian control, just like this bird that I managed to ring read as it chilled out on one of the mounds: -

adult GBBG 'JH413'; ringed at Mandar, Vest-Agder, Norway on 3rd June 2011 and last reported in Norway on 19th August 2011.

I had a go at a bit of bird handling, and now used to Black-headed Gulls. They're pretty meagre really, and only give you a quick nip even if they're going at you full throttle.

3cy Black-headed Gull - note the retained dark feathering on the primary-coverts

And then I just about managed to deal with the a bit of large gull action. I was glad that I didn't venture any bigger than Herring Gulls, as there was a fair bit of blood being drawn by those GBBGs...

Once the ringing had finished, I headed back to the south [best] side of the river, and spent the last  couple of hours of light unsuccessfully looking for a Bittern at Crossness. Another decent day locally.