Gulls and Godwits at Crossness today

Another day locally, and thankfully there seems to be a bit of change each day at the moment. After doing a bit of work in the morning and waiting for Karen to come back from a lunch/brunch thing with her friends, it wasn't til mid afternoon that we headed out. All tactical admittedly, as I knew it was an incoming tide early evening at Crossness.

adult summer Mediterranean Gull, Crossness 6th July 2014

The outfall delivered a second Med Gull in as many days - this time, a nice adult summer. Copious amounts of Black-headed Gulls were checked, with little else of note unfortunately though the feeding Common Terns (including a couple of juveniles) were pretty smart. Also after just a Redshank last weekend, it seems as though wader passage is starting a bit more now as there were 18 Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits on the foreshore today, including this orange flagged bird ringed in the Gulf of Morbihan, northwest France.

Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits - including this French ringed bird on the right. Eighteen of them were present on the Thames foreshore this evening

Added to this, there were a couple of other bits that almost made me heave - the 2 hybrid Ruddy x Common Shelducks from yesterday were still about by the jetty, while a couple of Egyptian Geese had ventured onto the Thames foreshore (the first time I'd seen them here - normally they're confined to Southmere).

A vulgar creature plodding around in the mud.

So that's it, another weekend done. Just a couple more until that long summer holiday starts, and I can't wait for another six long weeks of birding.

London chicks

We're just about through that really slow period. Hence the lack of updates on here last weekend - didn't exactly think people would be interested in last weekend's action of returning Redshanks, a lone Yellow-legged Gull and a couple of Oystercatchers that flew over Rotherhithe.

Post-breeding dispersal and a few youths during the week has started to speed things up, at least in the gull department. And so today I toured around Rotherhithe - where I found a nicely fledged juvenile Common Tern on Surrey Water; good to see that a pair has again bred in Inner London. Then, the other side of the peninsular I found my first Herring Gull chick locally. Bizarre how the simple things in birding life can please you.

my first ever locally bred Herring Gull chick.

And given that it was a year ago pretty much to the day that this lovely Bonaparte's Gull turned up at the outfall at Crossness, I thought it was worth a check one year later. It wasn't there admittedly, but a juvenile Mediterranean Gull - the first of the year - was quality that I hadn't had for a few weeks. There were also a couple of hideous looking Ruddy Shelduck x Shelduck hybrids that I found in Barking Bay initially, before they flew onto the mud by the outfall. A couple of Yellow-legged Gulls were also present, and it was all nice and enjoyable. Until a heavy rain shower punished me. I'd left my coat in the car...

Summer (gull) loving

It's definitely that time of year where if you're not up for a bit of birding boredom, you start looking at flowers and the like. And here in London, it's not exactly full of breeding birds either. I watched a pair of Oystercatchers today and yesterday at Crossness, feeding their single young copious amounts of worms while Shelduck ducklings in their 'nurseries' are always nice enough. So the highlights of a couple of visits to Crossness this weekend - a 3rd-summer Yellow-legged Gull and a Little Egret. Pretty slim pickings.

But, as usual, there is always something to be found amongst London's skanky non-breeding, immature gulls that loaf about places such as Rotherhithe and Crossness at this time of year. Nothing yet in the way of interesting species (but I'm grilling all those Black-headed Gulls at Crossness) but the rings are starting to come in again after a dearth of sightings in April/early May.

Great Black-backed Gull KK2T - photographed in Rotherhithe on 17th June 2012. Looks rather more mature these days...

Along with a handful of locally ringed 1st-summer Herrings Gulls, I saw a 3rd-summer Great Black-backed Gull at Crossness last Sunday. Seems like I've been stalking this bird. LK2T was ringed at Rainham as a 1st-winter on 17th December 2011. I saw it for the first time on the mud off the Hilton Hotel, Rotherhithe on 16th and 17th June 2012, then at Crossness on 7th September 2013... with nobody else having reported it at all. This either shows the lack of observers watching gulls in London (away from places like Rainham and Beddington), or that most people probably have better things to do with their time. Make your own mind up I suppose.

Short-toed Eagle in East Sussex

When I'm abroad and a big bird turns up (a mega, not literally), I'm always relieved when it's a species I've seen before. This was the case a couple of weeks back when Britain's third Short-toed Eagle was found on a Dorset heath. It lingered there for most to see it, while the intervening period saw a case of 'I've seen a Short-toed Eagle', 'no, I've seen a Short-toed Eagle', 'no I've seen a Short-toed Eagle' from East Sussex to Essex to Cambridgeshire. Most of these, inevitably, stink of the proverbial.

Anyway, as it turned out, the bird seen in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex earlier this week had probably remained there all along because early afternoon today, it was still there and news was whacked out...

When news broke, I was not primed to go straight away. Heading in the wrong direction in fact - up the M11 with Karen in the direction of her parents. However, having done what was necessary there, Karen and I were heading back south and around the M25, hitting Ashdown Forest at 5.30pm. This wasn't a place I was too familiar with, and bizarrely the first time I'd ever been to this beautiful part of southern England. Lucking out on pulling into a car park just as a group of birders were zooming off to Long car park, we tagged along, then parked and made our way across the heath to where the bird was perched.

Short-toed Eagle Ashdown Forest, East Sussex 15th June 2014. The same bird as seen previously in Dorset and Hampshire.

A lovely evening twitch to be honest - ended up tracking the bird for an hour or so, watching it rotate its head around almost full circle as it tracked everyone. The bird seemed pretty faithful to the small valley to the west of the Long car park, and as far as heathland habitat goes with a load of reptiles and small birds, I imagine it has once again found a decent place. 

Short-toed Eagle Ashdown Forest, East Sussex 15th June 2014.

Just like last weekend's Spectacled Warbler trip, I'd also seen this species before in Britain - I remember the nervous wait as the first British record of Short-toed Eagle, on Scilly, rose over Great Ganilly before seeing it later on over the boat between St.Mary's and St.Martin's. In certain ways, these 'non-pressure' twitches for species I've seen before are the best. Or perhaps I'm just getting old and hardcore twitching is either a young or a severely autistic man's game!

Enjoying the Spectacle

1992 seems a long time ago. That was when the first Spectacled Warbler was at Filey. I didn't see that one (though I did see a Sardinian Warbler there the following year),. The Porth Meudwy car crash seems like another life time, and so does my only previous British Spectacled Warbler - a mad dash to Landguard in 1997 while I was doing my GCSEs. So, yes, it has been a while... and like many other species these days, Spectacled Warbler doesn't carry the aura it once did 'back in the day.



Spectacled Warbler Burnham Overy, Norfolk 8th June 2014

However, having had two really dross days at Crossness - with highlights being 3 Teal and a Peregrine - and having missed the Short-toed Eagle twitch while I was in St Lucia, I really needed to see something half decent. The annual June/July build up of 1st-summer gulls has started to get me going, but they're not ticking all the boxes just yet.  So venturing out of London just after midday I headed up through the sunshine to the North Norfolk coast where, after a pleasant walk eastwards along the seawall from Burnham Overy Staithe, I clapped eyes on this vocal, diminutive warbler in the dune slack.

Spectacled Warbler Burnham Overy, Norfolk 8th June 2014

To be honest, I really enjoyed it - no pressure, a small Sunday afternoon crowd and a naturally showy bird. It's relatively scratchy song and scolding contact call was good to hear too.

Birds on St. Lucia

It's not the type of place I usually go, but once in a while I suppose it's nice to relax. So it was that I've got a week in St. Lucia; a lovely island full of nice beaches, tropical seas and lush vegetation. And a few birds too - in fact, the endemic and near endemic species are all relatively straightforward to see - St. Lucia Parrot, St. Lucia Black Finch, St. Lucia Warbler, St. Lucia Oriole, St. Lucia Pewee and White-breasted Thrasher. Here are a few photos to keep things going on this blog.

St. Lucia Warbler Gran Anse May 2014

St. Lucia Oriole Gran Anse May 2014

Magnificent Frigatebird Soufriere May 2014

Zenaida Dove Pigeon Island May 2014

American Kestrel Cap Estate May 2014



St. Lucia Parrots Des Cartiers Trail, May 2014

 

Sunshine birding

I much prefer it to be overcast with rain. Apart from the fact you avoid getting burnt in this nice weather, there are generally more birds. That said, walking around is far more pleasant. And after a hectic week, I decided to pay an evening visit to Crossness on Friday and it paid off - a couple of Black-tailed Godwits distantly in Barking Bay were located an hour or so later off the outfall, and with better views, confirmed my earlier suspicions that they were nominate, 'Continental Black-tailed Godwits'. A pair, extremely leggy with a peach/beige hue to their breasts and then pale underparts with extensively long, orange-based bills. I had one in spring a couple of years ago, but these are under-recorded as overshoot potential from the Low Countries is pretty high.

And so to yesterday, and it was a dawn session at Crossness where all was quiet and then I checked a few places out in southeast London. The Common Terns were back on Surrey Water, and during my rounds a really forlorn looking 1st-summer Black Redstart was singing away. Not too sure how this species is doing this spring, as I've not received too many records (in my role as Inner London recorder) from the sites in The City.

Black Redstart 17th May 2014

Today, I headed out east with news of the reappearance of Black-winged Stilts at Cliffe RSPB. People who know me will realise I don't really have a soft spot for this species - raucous and common everywhere you go outside of the UK, as well as being so territorial that they'd drive a Pterodactyl away if it landed near them. But I succumbed and saw four of the heinous beasts distantly in the sunshine at Cliffe RSPB this morning; three together (including a male) on the flood near the coastguards and then another roosting on Flamingo Pool. An adult Mediterranean Gull and a couple of Cuckoos provided more pleasant diversions while back at Crossness, a juvenile Stonechat (not sure where that's come from?) and a Sand Martin were the highlights as what feels like the summer doldrums are about to set in.