A Polish immigrant

I'd meant to do this post earlier this evening, but running the Azores Bird Sightings website seems to have taken over my life at the moment. Looking on enviously with what is going on over there - it's still a distant 3 weeks til I go - the London offering is pretty sobering. But, within the few miles of my flat, there is always birding potential along the River Thames.

Having got back from Ireland early afternoon yesterday, I headed out for a spot of late lunch with Karen in Greenwich. Once this was finished, while driving along the road in North Greenwich, I spotted an adult Med Gull over an Asda car park with a few Black-headed Gulls - still a notable bird in London. As it was within a mile or so of where I'd seen last week's Polish ringed bird, it wasn't surprising that it was indeed this bad boy again - and still yet to hear from the ringers, it is definitely Polish, as the bottom photo here allows you to read the ring inscription as being from Gdansk. I had to open the £1.69 loaf of bread we'd just purchased to lure it in, much to Karen's annoyance as she felt it wasted on a Polish gull. But this Med Gull, PJN0, had expensive taste.

Also, a male Black Redstart still just chilling on the Greenwich peninsular. Sometimes a bit of relaxed local stuff is a nice anecdote from the manic nature of hardcore British and Irish listing.

A tale of two kings

Shattered after one of those autumn pulse periods that won't be forgotten in a hurry. Hugh Delaney has blindly kept faith with Inishmore, County Galway, for years and years and having found a Myrtle Warbler a couple of years ago, he stepped it up to the max by finding the WP's first Eastern Kingbird on Friday. It doesn't get any bigger than that, so flights booked and ferry sorted, it was looking promising for the weekend... especially with some vague news of a Belted Kingfisher also in County Galway (I'd missed the 2005 bird as I was abroad).

So meeting up with Jerry, Dave, Bob and Lee G in the early hours at Stansted, and after a technical fault that delayed us for half an hour or so, we were on our way to Shannon... or so we thought. As we descended into Shannon, it was a complete pea souper and after an aborted landing and a fair amount of circling we were told we had to divert and land in Dublin! Not good, though news already filtered through whilst airborne that the Kingbird hadn't been seen so the pressure was off a little. However, for me and Lee G, the Belted K had firmed up, so there was still some urgency and a plan was hatched for our arrival in Dublin.

We legged it through the airport, and treating good old Ryanair's offer of a courtesy bus to Shannon with the contempt it deserved, hired a car and screamed across the country arriving in beautiful Connemara, Galway within three hours. With still no sign of the Kingbird (having obviously departed), focus on the BK was the target but we arrived at Lough Fee 20 minutes after it had flown off high south towards Kylemore. Josh, PAC and Peggers had then seen it from the road flying towards Kylemore Abbey so the chase was on for a nervous couple of hours until, bang, Jim L located it sitting unobtrusively in low branches on the small lake west of the abbey.



The staff here were absolutely blinding, waivering the 12.50 euro entrance fee for us so long as some photos get sent their way of this rare visitor. Anyway, I watched the bird for over an hour until just shy of 4pm when having had a couple of pops at fishing and calling a couple of times, it headed back east. And that was the last sighting of the bird, at least up until as I write this.

Kylemore Abbey, Connemara, Galway - a fantastically scenic site made even better by the presence of the BK

We managed to get back to Shannon for a decent time, booking a hotel, have a decent Chinese washed down by a couple of pints of the black stuff whilst watching the video of the Long-toed Stint video too at Weirwood. A crying shame the Kingbird wasn't around, but for someone who has seen a fair few birds, getting a BOU/IRBC tick out of the weekend was unreal as I'd have gone for the BK alone of course. Every cloud has a silver lining.

No pot of gold at the end, but an impressive rainbow(s) with Connemara as the backdrop

Back in southeast London

After all the travels recently, it was nice to actually be able to spend the morning trawling through the usuals in Rotherhithe and slightly further afield in southeast London. Loads of Black-headed Gulls on the river, and Common Gulls have returned in numbers. Just a couple of miles further east in Greenwich, the quality was upped somewhat. A couple of Black Redstarts were mooching about an area of derelict land, with a male showing particularly well pecking about, rather unperturbed by my presence.

I also found a nice adult Mediterranean Gull on the Thames by the Anchor & Hope pub late morning, and after showing well for a bit on the water it flew onto the nearby barges showing off what appears to be Polish bling. Before I headed off home, I had a good chat to a couple of Charlton fans looking forward to their game against a Keen-less Blackburn just a few hundred yards away.

PJN0 - research suggests a Polish origin

All quiet on the western front

What does a picture like this conjure up to you?

Well, in short, no birds and a load of shenanigans. In fact hay bales wrapped ingeniously by Legoman faces in County Kerry were the find of the trip. With an easterly blow and no new fronts coming in from the Atlantic since the weekend before, Josh J and I knew this trip the weekend just gone would be a quiet one. But you've got to try, and that's what we did. Saturday was spent in west Cork, checking the estuaries around Clonakilty, Rosscarbery and Timoleague with loads of common birds seen as well as a decent looking Azorean Gull candidate that has been lingering the area for the past month or so.

Wanting to see at least one yank this weekend, we headed to Garretstown beach where amongst the most selfish, insolent and obnoxious dog walkers that I've ever had the discourtesy to encounter, was a nice juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper. This bird was what I'd call a 'typical' individual so compare it with the recent Western/Semi-p on the Wirral. I think structurally there's not too much wrong with the comparison, and that's one reason I've always been in the Semi-p camp on that bird. Back in the day, juvenile Western Sandpipers were easy to identify weren't they??!!

Anyway a group of people and their three dogs, that could see Josh and I watching birds on the beach, walked straight pass us flushing the waders, and then got an absolute ear bashing from me that involved several necessary and unnecessary. So much so that, before any garda incident evolved with the next potential incident, we departed to the tranquility of further west. And quietness is what we got - nothing else of note seen for the rest of the day at places like Ballydehob, Bantry, Castletown Bearhaven, Derrynane and Ballinskelligs. The Sunday proved as eventless, although a couple of hours at an elusive Reed Warbler on Valentia Island proved frustrating while Carrahane was as poor as it can possibly be in late September. Some lovely looking passerine habitat found though, and certainly worth bashing soon after a deep low hits in October.

habitat on Valentia Island

Whatever the weather and lack of birds this time around, Irish weekends are always a nice time so at least for the foreseeable future that's it, and back to stuff this side of the Irish Sea from now on. Unless those lows come bouncing in again...

The golden touch

That time of year again, with the weekend commute to Shannon. Keeping the faith with Achill Island, where I managed some success this time last year, it was with some anticipation and a Papa Johns that Josh J, John A and I headed off to the wild west of County Mayo on Friday night.

In the half light the next morning with a fresh westerly, a walk along the golf course at Keel provided nothing too unusual - just a couple of Whimbrel, a Golden Plover and a few Ringed Plovers. A check of a few other sites produced a massive Mayo find in the form of a juvenile Black-necked Grebe; not sure when the last one was in the county but it's a big Irish west coast bird. Back at the golf course, we pulled up on the seaward side looking across the machair. With a quick bins scan I locked onto two plovers, and after a second or so look, I rushed to the boot and grabbed the scope knowing what I was going to see - along with the earlier Euro Golden Plover, this smaller more attenuated bird was a proper fresh American Golden Plover. Result, and presumably thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Leslie.

 

from left to right: European Golden Plover, American Golden Plover and JJ

When first found, you could tell it was fresh in, probing around desperately and then looking really lethargic and hunched up getting a bit of shut eye after its transatlantic crossing. On the Sunday, it was much more spritely - sprinting around on the short turf and flying around a bit more with its lone European cousin. Anyway, this bird showed to within just a few metres and reinforced my view that juvenile yank waders up close and personal cannot be beaten.

Other highlights of the weekend included a fly over Pec Sand at Keel golf course yesterday morning, and a Jack Snipe at Corragaun. Otherwise, it was just decent scenery, good company and wading deep in the channels at Corragaun Lough with no reward. There's always next weekend.

A very odd Azorean Gull

Just before I headed back from Terceira on 31st August, I spotted this juvenile gull in the fish port at Praia da Vitoria. It was certainly one of the most bizarre looking creatures I'd seen for a long while - just why would a juvenile Azorean Gull (strictly speaking first-winter, as a couple of second generation scaps are coming through) have a pink based bill especially so close to its birth?

This bill colour gave a superficial resemblance to California Gull/Glaucous Gull for a passing moment. Completely at odds to Azorean Gull and certainly Yellow-legged Gull - though I've seen shots of a 'pink-billed' YLG from France in December. You'll see on the shots above that Azorean Gulls really do have a bit of a Nearctic feel, presuming that is what this bird is - particularly in flight if you look at the dark secondaries and dark based greater coverts. However rump, uppertail and undertail coverts as well as tail band are exactly what you expect for atlantis too. This bird also shows the dark shins that atlantis show.

Anyway, just be thankful this bird didn't end up out of range as it would have a heck of a lot of people scratching their heads. Here are a couple of typical juvenile atlantis from late August to compare it with: -

Thanks to Josh J, Peter Ad, Peter Al, Julian H and Kevin M for their input.

Audouin's ring reading results

You might remember that on 20th August 2012 I saw this beautiful, fresh juvenile Audouin's Gull. Naturally, as it's a rarity in the Canary Islands, I sent the record off to Ricard Gutierrez and the Rare Birds in Spain website with the ring details.

And it turns out that this bird comes from the Ebro Delta, Tarragona, Catalonia colony being ringed as a chick on 27th June 2012 by... the same Ricard Gutierrez I'd emailed. As he and his mates only ringed 40 of the 1000 or so Audouin's chicks, this record is pretty coincidental!

On the ring reading front, other recent interesting records that I've made of gulls (yes, yawn) include: -

• a Lesser Black-backed Gull at Rainham, London on 21st August 2012 that has spent the last three winters at Pinto rubbish dump, Madrid having been initially ringed at Rainham on 12th September 2009.
• colour-ringed Med Gulls at Lodmoor, Dorset on 8th September 2012 included a 3rd-winter ringed as a chick near Antwerp, Belgium on 29th May 2010 and last seen on 20th September 2011 at Llantsantffraed, Ceredigion and another 3rd-winter (again aged in the field by a slight dark subterminal band to P10) ringed as a chick near Pas-de-Calais, France on 22nd June 2010 and subsequently seen at Portscatho, Cornwall on 14th September 2010 and Playa del Rincon, Gijon, Asturias, Spain on 15th January 2012.