Pennington Flash gull roost

Another day at the gull roost, another fine selection of birds. I suppose that to most people who don't do the roost it would appear that there is only one regular yellow-legged gull at the flash at the moment, that being the 3rd winter individual which is often seen standing on bouys or robbing coots.

Actually though, there are two regular yellow-legged gulls, the other is this cracking adult which has been roosting at the flash for around three weeks at least. It stands out every bit as much as the 3rd winter bird, having a pure white head and being a couple of shades darker than our typical 'British' herring gull, but nowhere near as dark as lesser black-back, not even the pale British race Larus fuscus graellsii. A pitfall in the New Year is the Scandinavian race of herring gull, Larus argentatus argentatus, which is darker than the British herring gull and at that time of year can have a white head, but at present in November, most argentatus have heavily streaked heads with a very aggressive appearance. A few argentatus regularly roost at the flash over the winter, but with practise even in the New Year they can comfortably be seperated from yellow-legged gull just on structure and jizz.

White head, dark mantle, distinctive head shape and slightly longer wings give this adult yellow-legged gull a unique appearance amongst the gulls at the flash at the moment. The only bird it could be confused with is the 3rd winter yellow-legged gull!

Adult yellow-legged gull and lesser black-backed gull L.f.graellsii.

The third winter yellow-legged gull was near the yacht club at 2:30pm today. I usually see it in the east bay or on the bouys next to Horrock's hide. Again, look at how white this birds head is.

This 2nd winter Iceland gull turned up in the east bay at about 3pm, the first time it has been seen at the flash since the initial sighting nearly two weeks ago. Presumably the same bird has been seen twice at Viridor Recycling Centre,Chanters Industrial Estate Atherton, and this may even be the returning bird from last winter.

I usually head for the gap at the east bay first because a lot of the birds drop in here first and spend an hour or so bathing before they fly to the west end of the flash for the roost proper. Sometimes it pays off like today, sometimes it doesn't, but if it does, the birds are usually a lot closer and can be seen in better light conditions.

I love this photo. This was taken at around 3pm, so not exactly dusk, but the bird was still a fair distance away from where I was standing on a very dull day. Anybody who was at the flash in the afternoon could easily have seen this from the slip way on the opposite bank.

Adult Mediterranean gull. Always a pleasure to see, there have been at least three Med gulls at the flash over the past couple of weeks. This was in the pre-roost in the east bay.

A pitfall for the unwary, a leucistic black-headed gull, Not only is its plumage much paler than the other black-headed gulls, its bill is distinctly more red.

Morecambe Bay from Arnside

Little Egret

One of our favourite walks starts at Arnside on the Kent estuary and takes us west around Blackstone Point to White Creek and then on to Far Arnside, and finally back via Arnside Knott. The views are amongst the best anywhere, not only over the river Kent towards the Lake District, but also over Morecambe Bay, and in summer you also have the added pleasure of a tremedous array of flora and fauna, including some very rare plants and insects. These include Teesdale violet at its only UK location away from Teesdale, the orchid dark red helleborine and butterflies such as the rare high brown fritillary and Scotch argus. However these are just distant memories in November and today we had to be content with glorious views and some decent birding.

Thousands of waders spend the winter on the mud of Morecambe Bay.

Oystercatchers

Drake red-breasted merganser

Adult drake red-brested merganser
 with a female and young drake.

Maidenhair fern

I know of Maidenhair fern from just a single cliff face just outside Arnside. In the UK it's a very rare plant, being mainly southerly but with a very scattered distribution.

The English Solway

Dotterel, Cardurnock, Cumbria

I've spent a lot of time watching golden plover flocks in recent weeks. Last month it was a flock of 1000 at Dinas Dinlle, near Foryd Bay, Caernarfon, which contained a juvenile American Golden Plover, and today in Cumbria on the English Solway, it was a similar size flock which contained a juvenile dotterel. 

They can be quite frustrating, not only very flighty but when they do take to the air they can take an age to land again. They fly up high in group formation almost like starlings, but when they drop down they glide towards the ground, the leaders even dangling their legs as if they are about to land, but then at the last minute they invariably rise high again and often fly off into the distance, sometimes so far that you can't even see the flock, before they return if you're lucky, circling over head to repeat the performance. Often the flock will split with many veering off in a different direction to the rest leaving you unsure as to which flock to follow, and the air is full of their mournful peeps. They can spend 30 minutes or more in the air before landing, and when they do land it's often in a distant field, almost too far even for telescope views, and at other times all you can see is their heads due to the undulations in the ground. Then you have to wait for them to fly and land again, and hope that it's closer and in view. Spectacular no doubt, but frustrating.

Under such circumstances picking out a single, juvenile dotterel amongst the flock is perhaps not as straight forward as you might think. This is far from the spectacular bird you might see on spring migration, and although clearly different from golden plover, it's similar enough to not stand out particularly well in a large flock.

However find it we did, my latest dotterel by two months and it was a very smart bird, somewhat smaller than the golden plover. Then we moved on to look at the geese.....

When we talk of barnacle geese on the Solway Firth, an easy mistake to make is to think that we're talking about Scotland. Actually half of it is in England of course. The English Solway might not have the flagship reserves such as Caerlaverock and Mersehead, but the birding is equally as spectacular, more so some might say, because it feels more wild without the hides, the cafes and the gift shops.

Our first encounter with geese today was with a flock of about 3000 barnacles at Anthorn. They were very close to the road and we spent an hour or so watching them. It's surprising how variable barnacle geese are, especially their facial features. Some have a very 'open' white face, but at the other extreme some have a black forehead which gives them a face not dissimilar to a Canada goose, and there are plenty of birds in between. On the flanks, some are pure white, whilst others are varying shades of grey. Dotted in amongst them today were three white, leucistic birds.

The flock at Anthorn was just the taster though, things really got serious when we arrived at Rockcliffe, where there was a staggering flock of 10,000 birds. This flock was a good bit further away, but they stretched in tight packed ranks right along the saltmarsh. A couple of times they were flushed by something unseen and they took to the air with a breathtaking cacophony of noise and then flew over the mud flats and sand banks of the river Esk before circling back to the saltmarsh and landing again. Wow, that was good! We were looking for a Richardson's cackling goose which had been travelling with the flock, but we were unable to pick it out. There were just too many birds and they were just that bit too distant and it was just that bit too late in the day.

We were rapidly loosing the light as we made our way back to the car, but even now the birding wasn't over, because in front of us as we walked, the swirling murmuration of Starlings near Gretna kept us entertained!

A sign of the times, a little egret, one of several scattered throughout the barnacle goose flock.

King Eider, Ynyslan, Ceregidion

I've seen several king eider over the years, but all miles away in Northern Scotland, so the opportunity to see one relatively close to home in mid Wales, albeit a female, was too tempting to resist. However somehow resist it we did for three months, before finally yesterday we succumbed and headed to Ynyslas, on the opposite side of the river Dyfi to Aberdyfi. The bird hadn't been reported since the end of September and was thought to have gone, but on Thursday it was surprisingly reported again giving us an unexpected reprieve.

On the way there I suddenly realised that I wasn't sure if the bird was tidal and worse still I had no idea what time the high tide was. However fortunately when we arrived at 10:30 we found an incoming tide due to reach its peak at 13:30.

It certainly appeared to be tidal, there were plenty of birds around, several species of wader, shelduck, 50 or so wigeon and a red kite over, whilst on the sea there were red-throated divers and common scoter, but no sign of the star bird. However right on cue, at about 12:30 we spotted a single eider slowly making its way into the mouth of the river Leri. This surely had to be the bird, since we hadn't seen another Eider up to that point!

Sure enough it was the female king eider. It swam along the edge of a rapidly disappearing sand bank, occasionally hauling itself out and once even attempting a kip, which never seemed feasible to me given the speed of the advancing tide, before finally swimming onto our side of the river and starting to feed.

It always amazes me when I watch these types of ducks feeding. I once watched an inland velvet scoter at close range devour mussel after mussel, swallowing them whole before immediately diving again for more, and it just makes me wonder how they fit them all in. I realise of course that they crush the molluscs in their gizzard, but still they must have a stomach full of shell. This king eider not only ate mussels, we also watched it eat quite a large looking crab!

The bird was first found at Aberaeron, some 25 miles to the south of Ynyslas, where it was initially misidentified as a common eider. Although females are clearly not a patch on the spectacular males, this is still a king eider and perhaps surprisingly, only the second ever in  Wales, so well worth a look. The fact that it is a female makes it more of an id challenge which is also a good reason to check it out. It's been in the area for nearly five months, perhaps it will stick around for the rest of the winter.

Year 2017: 254 (King Eider)

Phonescoped photos tend to be paler, more washed out and not as sharp as those I take with my bridge camera, but sometimes they are the only option if the bird is distant as is often the case at the Pennington Flash gull roost for example.  I like this photo because it shows well the bill profile and the sails on the birds back.

The Pennington Flash gull roost - week 1

2cy Iceland Gull

Week one (for me) of watching the gull roost at Pennington Flash comes to an end with a very decent return. John Tymon lured me out last Friday (3rd) and immediately we hit the jackpot with a cracking adult yellow-legged gull and two Mediterranean gulls, an adult and a 1st winter, the latter a plumage I have never seen at the flash before. At least one more Mediterranean gull followed on Monday, before the star bird of the week on Wednesday, a smart 2nd calander year Iceland gull, possibly the returning bird from last year. This is a very early date for the species, in fact I've never seen one in November before, anywhere. It seems particularly early given that it's so far been a relatively mild winter, with other northern species such as whooper swans and woodcock present in much smaller numbers than would normally be expected at this time of year.

Adult Mediterranean Gull - Photo: John Tymon

First winter Mediterranean Gull - Photo: John Tymon

3rd calander year yellow-legged gull

Following close on the heals of the Iceland gull, Thursday saw the return of the 3rd calander year yellow-legged gull, which had been missing for around three weeks. This is also a very smart bird, and very aggresive, it often chases other gulls off the bouys and will attack whole flocks of coots to steal mussels. In fact that's a good way of locating the bird, look for a gull attacking coots. It won't always be this bird but usually it will be!

Yellow-legged gull robbing coots

Apologies for the quality of the photos by the way, most are taken on my phone, through the telescope, in dull often windy conditions and at a distance of 100 - 200m or more, then heavily cropped. It's a miracle I have any photos to be honest.

Scandinavian herring gull spp. argentatus

This is one of my favourite gulls, Scandinavian herring gull, or argentatus as we call it. Darker, bigger, heavily streaked head, they are often monsters! The arrival of the Iceland gull coincided with a build up of herring gulls which included several of these birds.

On Friday the adult and 3rd calander year yellow-legged gulls were again present, though frustratingly the former was very distant and we managed to pick out an adult Mediterranean gull.

Black-headed gulls

It begins....... the Pennington Flash gull roost

I told myself that I might not do the gull roost at Pennington Flash this winter, at least not until the New Year. After all, I reasoned, I did do it a lot at the start of the year and saw lots of good stuff such as glaucous gull, two Iceland gulls, yellow-legged gulls and several Mediterraneangulls. I'd done my bit, so why put myself through it again?  Then I got a text off John Tymon saying that he was in Green Lane for the roost and I just couldn't help myself. All of the old triggers kicked in and before I had chance to put up a convincing arguement I found myself pulling up in Green Lane and unloading the telescope from the car. Perhaps I wouldn't see anything, and perhaps a negative experience would put me off for a while.

No such luck, within minutes John had found a pristine adult yellow-legged gull, and after watching it for a few minutes I reluctantly started to scan the rest of the roost and was aghast to find a near summer pumage adult Mediterranean gull with a speckly head. A few minutes later I had also found a 1st winter Med Gull. Nightmare, that's me hooked for the rest of the winter now. Still, it is one of the great birding spectacles, and it is only 5 minutes drive from home, so perhaps I shouldn't complain too much.....

Mediterranean flycatcher - a very modern way of birding

Spotted Flycatcher - Corfu

I didn't expect to increase my Western Palearctic list by one today, but despite having never heard of  Mediterranean flycatcher before this morning, not only did I add it to my WP list, I even managed to tick both races!

"From 1 January 2018 the British Ornithologist's Union (BOU) will adopt the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) World Bird List for all its taxonomic needs, including the British List". There are gains and losses. Some species are lumped into one species, others such as tundra and taiga bean goose become two. Overall my list remains much the same. Click here for the full BOU statement.

However, it turns out that completely unbeknown to me, the IOC have split spotted flycatcher into two species in Europe. Spotted flycatcher Muscicapa striata, the bird we know and love in the UK, occurs over the majority of the Western Palearctic (including the vast majority of the Mediterranean).  The new species, confusingly called Mediterannean flycatcher Muscicapa tyrrhenica, occurs as two races with very limited range in the Mediterranean, M.t. balerica on the Balearic islands and M.t. tyrrhenica on Sardinia and Corsica.  This came to light (for me!) today following the discovery a few days ago of a possible Mediterranean flycatcher in North Yorkshire. I can't comment on the identification of that particular bird having not seen it, but you can read more about the ID features of the species on Birding Frontiers here.

I knew that I had seen "spotted" flycatchers in the Mediterranean previously, but they hadn't particularly stuck in my mind, and I struggled to remember exactly where I had seen them. Fortuntately having kept a meticulously detailed database of my bird sightings for many years I was able to query my records almost instantaneously and discover that not only have I seen quite a few on Mallorca of the race M.t. balerica, I've also seen several of the other race M.t. tyrrhenica in Sardinia. Result! One armchair tick and even a possible second pending a futher split of the two races!

Interestingly, the Yorkshire bird is sometimes being referred to as Tyrrenian flycacther, which presumably means that it most closely fits the Sardinian race rather than the Balearic. These two groups of islands also share other species which are rare or unknown elsewhere in Europe, including Balearic and Mamora's warbler. Like Mediterranean flycatcher, I've also seen both Balearic warbler in Mallorca and Marmora's in Sardinia, and in 2010 I saw a Marmora's warbler in South Wales. What a coincidence it would be if in the case of both the warbler and the flycatcher it was the Sardinian race which reached our shores. I believe that DNA has been collected and is on its way to the lab. The joys of modern birding!

Twite

It's not often I get such good views of twite, and with sun in the perfect position I was able to get some half decent phonescope photos. I love their bright yellow bills.

Yellow-legged gull, Pennington Flash

Mid October saw the return of last winters long staying yellow-legged gull to Pennington Flash. It's now a smart 3rd winter bird and hopefully it will remain with us for the rest of the winter so that we can watch it attain full adult plumage. Thanks to John Tymon for letting me know about the bird.

Here it is in 2nd winter plumage from last winter. I wonder where it spent the summer?

It's quite an interesting bird, with a mirror on p10 reminiscent of Caspian gull and a mainly dark quite retarded bill.

It spent a lot of time catching mussels, either diving in as in this instance or stealing from coots.

A late common tern at Pennington Flash

Finally this morning I caught up with a common tern which has been present for a few days at Pennington Flash. It's particularly of interest to me because it's my latest ever common tern, anywhere, in fact it's the first I have ever seen in October, so it was an opportunity to get a good look at it's plumage at this time of year. What makes the date even more remarkable to me is that this is an adult not a juvenile. I would have expected adults to be long gone by now, and any stragglers to be juveniles.

It was very approachable, and I wondered if it was unwell, but an angler told me that earlier it had been feeding on casters which he had been throwing into the water, and later I saw it fishing in the western bay so perhaps it's just a tame bird (extreme northern breeder??). It's also more or less still in breeding plumage, with a full black cap and quite a lot of red in the bill (I love the yellow tip!). Just a hint of a carpel bar perhaps and the dark patch behind the eye is there, despite the fact that the forehead is still black.

It seems quite short legged and pale to me, but I'm not trying to claim anything other than common tern! Most common terns are long gone from north-west England by the end of September, and what few remain into October are almost exclusively coastal.