Albert Village Lake, 30th July 2015

Only a few weeks in, and I was already feeling guilty for having "missed" the previous week due to working elsewhere. So it was good to get back, and on arrival late morning there were a good number of gulls on the water again. Michs provided the main interest once again, with at least 22 present, the half dozen irresistible juvs performing well in the flat grey light. Despite the increase in juvs of other species, the michs stood out due to their increased wear and the presence of at least a couple of newly moulted scaps on every bird.

A juv Med Gull appeared amongst the Black-heads in the bay, and later on a smart near-ad Caspian Gull flew in for a quick wash before unfortunately transferring to the inaccessible area over the bank. Fortunately the iPhone's video managed to pick out a few crisp frames of the wing-pattern.

Albert Village Lake, 9th & 16th July 2015

It's the same every summer, I never mean to stop gulling, but work gets busier and takes me to laridly less-trodden places. Therefore a smart 2cy Caspian Gull at Roos, East Yorkshire, in the bright shimmer of a late April afternoon was a nice surprise, and the last decent gull for a few months.

And so to July, and the end of the main thrust of breeding bird surveys, and a chance to check in on a gull site or two. The 9th was a frustratingly sunny affair at Albert Village Lake, but c800 LBBs were present, and accompanied by not one but two 2cy Caspian Gulls. There were also a dozen michs, including at least 3 cracking juvs, that would have been my first of the year were it not for a wholly unexpected flyby at South Gare the day before!

A week later I was back, better light but alas fewer and flightier birds. The more distinctive of the two Casps was present throughout, and remarkably a 3cy made an all too brief visit. Again the michs provided much of the entertainment though, with probably 15 birds during the session, at least 5 of them juvs. But already there were a handful of juv LBBs and 2 juv Herrings present.

Catch up, autumn 2014

Catch up time after a laridly-quiet but baby-busy autumn...
As the numbers of michs around Eastoft began to dwindle, more moved into the fields at Goole, and accompanying them was an adult Caspian Gull on 23rd Sept, 9th and 20th Oct, and a 3cy on 29th. The latter looked familiar, and was quite likely the same as that near Crowle on 22nd August.

Closer to home, visits to the tip have been few and far between, but a few hours on 15th Oct produced an adult Casp and 13 michs (7 ads, 4cy, 3cy, 2 2cy & 2 1cy) on Priorslee Lake, and a week later a late afternoon visit on 22nd revealed a spanking 2cy Caspian and 10 michs (6 ads, 3 2cy & 2 1cy) amongst 800+ LBBs. On 7th Nov Priorslee was deserted but Candles was busy for a change, with 7 michs (5 ads, 3cy, 1cy) and 3 hybrids.

More work in the northeast began in earnest in November, allowing regular checks of the mighty Teesside tips, and an adult mich at Cowpen Bewley on 2nd Dec was a big surprise. More expected but still pleasant was a count of 36 Med Gulls at Newbiggin on 3rd and a nice juv Iceland Gull in the roost off Blyth harbour on 4th.

Eastoft and Priorslee, 22nd Aug 2014

In a re-run of earlier in the week, whilst attempting to get most of my work done for the month ahead of our impending arrival, I found myself back around Eastoft early morning, on the way to work instead of on the way home, for a change. Possibly as a result of the different timings, there seemed to be more gulls about, and in the field near the chicken sheds north of Crowle, I was pleased to see c300 LBBs and 15 michs (13 ad-types and 2 2cys). But even better was a big chunky 3cy Caspian Gull, always nice to see! The heavy shawl and stubby rear end (dropped outer primaries) gave it a distinctive appearance, and the mantle tone was discernibly paler than the surrounding michs in the nice flat light.

I moved on a couple of miles through Eastoft to Boltgate where another c200 LBBs were loafing across a couple of fields. Views weren't as good, but another 15 michs were counted (including a juv), as well as another Caspian Gull! An adult this time, it was unfortunately roosting just over a slight rise but the protruding P10 showed a long white tip and tongue, and the bill was nice and long, and insipid yellow in colour. The small dark eye and small rounded head gave it a classic jizz, and a brief wing-stretch as I was interrupted by a curious farmer showed it to be missing P9 as suspected, and nice whitish tongues on the other outer primaries. A great result, better than could have been expected, and with another 3 michs just over the Yorkshire border, a total of 33 was pretty good too.
An afternoon at work near Roos was enlivened by a flooded field full of waders which included an ad Pec Sand and a juv Little Stint, but all the gull flocks were made up of smalls as usual, despite the proliferation of Casps just up the road at Flamborough recently!

Finally, I called in at Priorslee Lake again on the way home, where 6 michs (3 ads, 2 2cys and the fabulous big juv) were amongst c300 LBBs, and I later learned that the pink-billed juv Casp was up the road at Belvide at the same time...

Eastoft and Priorslee, 19th Aug 2014

Following 10 michs over Goole Fields the previous evening, I had time for another check of the flocks just over the Lincolnshire border on my way home, and this time accumulated a total of 30 michs, as usual virtually all adult-types. The number of gulls in general was don however, leading to some curious flock proportions: one flock by the radio mast contained 12 michs, 20 LBBs, 10 GBBs and 2 Herrings - that's more than 25% michs!

A quick look at Priorslee Lake last thing produced a nice pre-roost gathering of 380 LBBs, amongst which were 5 michs (2 ads, a 2cy and 2 juvs) and the first 2cy GBB of the autumn.

Eastoft and Candles, 12th Aug 2014

After a busy few days at work, I woke up in Doncaster with a free day ahead, so started with the gull flocks betwen Crowle and Eastoft. The first flock of 330 LBBs by the chicken sheds held 8 ad-type michs, then a flock of 70 LBBs by the radio mast contained 14 michs (13 ad-types and a 2cy). Further on, at least 500 LBBs were spread over a few fairly distant fields opposite Sand House Farm, and I managed another 16 michs. Finally, as I headed south, I came across another 4 michs by the A18 just into South Yorkshire, making 42 in total.
Back on home turf, the crematorium drew a blank as everything was out of sight behind a hedge, so I headed for Candles. Heat-haze was a bit of an issue, but a decent number of gulls yielded 7 michs (3 ads, a 3cy, 2 2cys and a juv), and then I picked up an amazing set of coverts on a juvenile gull on the top of the tip. A fantastic wedge across the greater coverts was highlighted by double wingbars of pale covert tips, and every feather was neatly fringed in white. The head was slightly paler than the body, although the belly and vent were pure white, and the bill leapt out at me, being pink-based already! It soon flew, revealing a broad black tailband on a bright white tail, pale underwings and a fairly pale inner primary window - a juv Caspian Gull! It landed closer and went straight to sleep, but those perfectly neat coverts were replicated on the scaps, the lower ones being classically long and leaf-like with no internal markings. A few of the inner greater coverts were lightly marbled, the tertials were dark brown with neat thumbnail tips, and the wings were long and attenuated. A beauty, despite that odd bill!

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the flock, a 2cy with a dazzling white head and body caught the eye, with a distinctly Caspian jizz. The eye was small and dark with that tell-tale shadow in front, the head nicely rounded with a good snout, the bill narrow and pinky-based, and the long legs almost whitish. The mantle tone was slightly confusing though, being somewhat darker than ideal, but unmarked unlike the nearby 2cy LBBs. Coverts and tertials looked ok too, making it the second Caspian Gull of the day!

Eastoft and Granville, 6th Aug 2014

At dawn on 5th I was on Thorne Moors NNR following a late Nightjar survey, enjoying the unexpected sight of 300 LBBs waking up from their roost on one of the floods. As they trickled out to feed, I counted out 17 michs - very nice.

The following day I had some time to kill after work so I decided to go the long way round to the motorway, and check any flocks following ploughs on the way. Turned out to be a great decision, with the first flock appearing just as I crossed the border into Lincs: 10 michs amongst c250 LBBs. A few yards further on, a flock of c600 LBBs held a whopping 33 michs, and then before entering Crowle I added another 22 michs (bringing the total to 65!) and a smart ad Caspian Gull! Result.

P10 - speaks for itself!

My last stop was Telford crematorium for a look at the gulls behind Granville landfill again, and a delightful field full of gulls contained 12 michs (6 ad-types, 3 2cy and 3 juvs) but not a sniff of the fuscus. A striking 3cy gull caught the eye though, with a mantle slightly paler in tone than the surrounding graellsii LBBs, and a distinctive jizz almost reminiscent of a Casp. The small eye was dark and the long bill had a spot of redon the gonys and a long sloped tip. The greater coverts looked very worn, but primary moult was nothing special, P1-6 already replaced and P7 growing. Despite never being provable, there was a distinct whiff of heuglini about it...

Priorslee and Granville, 4th Aug 2014

En route to work for the evening, I swung off the M54 on a hunch, and amongst a handful of gulls on Priorslee Lake was a big juv mich with a couple of newly moulted scaps. This got me to wondering, and I nipped up the road to the crematorium, where I was delighted to find a field full of gulls, including a fine total of 11 michs (6 ads, a 4cy, 3 2cys and another juv).

Candles, 29th July 2014

There had been a total absence of gulls at the tip over the last couple of months, and fears of it all being over were getting serious. But the incinerator hadn't opened yet, so surely there would be some late summer gulls looking for a warm meal hereabouts?
It was a warmer afternoon than I'd have liked, but as I scrambled up the nettle-covered (under-used!) bank, I could hear gulls! There were at least 500 over the top of the tip, and they were feeding in sight - bloody marvellous. Settling down to scan through them, thoughts turned to juvenile michs: July was almost over and I hadn't seen one yet! There were plenty of juv LBBs already, and even a couple of juv Herring Gulls, and I soon picked out a couple of adult-type michs.
My mind was wandering to other potential finds, and I started to wonder when the first Casp of the autumn might turn up (assuming the tip stays open that long!), before musing that my targets tend to be different depending on where I'm gulling. It makes no sense, but in the fields at work in Lincs and East Yorkshire, I feel much more on the look out for eastern taxa, despite the fact that Telford is only c75 miles further west!

But then a bird appeared in my scope that stopped my wandering mind in its tracks. Dazzling clean white head and body, and a gleaming white underwing too, but dark upperparts ruling out any brief thoughts of a 2cy cach. As it lowered its wings, the greater coverts stood out as a moderately worn, brownish band, whilst similar lesser and especially median coverts were interspersed with newer, blacker feathers. A handful of blackish scaps stood out amongst the paler, worn mantle too, but most importantly on the closed wing, the exposed primaries looked tar black, contrasting with every other 2cy gull on the tip, which had varying numbers of worn juvenile outer primaries. The fact that this bird possessed black 2nd-generation primaries meant it had already moulted its juvenile remiges - a sure-fire feature of 2cy Baltic Gull!

There was good news and bad news when it raised its wings again, as the expected whole set of primaries, lacking any moult gaps, wasn't to be seen. Instead, it was missing P4 and growing P3, having already replaced P1-2. This superficially put it behind the local 2cys which were already replacing somewhere between P6-8, but whilst they were replacing juvenile primaries (faded, brown, and pointed) with 2nd-generation feathers (blacker and round-tipped), my bird's existing primaries were all black and rounded, and the new P1-2 were 3rd-generation, blackish feathers with narrow white tips! So it was almost a year ahead of similar-aged birds alongside it, with regards to primary moult, putting it way out of range of even the most extreme intermedius.

The spread wing also revealed a full set of new, white-tipped secondaries (whereas the locals possessed large moult gaps in the secondaries, almost without exception), and a complete moulted tail. The greater coverts of the numerous 2cy graellsii present tended either to show gaps like in the secondaries, or were formed of a solid dark blackish band of brand-new, replaced feathers. The more worn greater coverts of the Baltic Gull were replaced over the winter along with the primaries, and so had seen more action.
So if so much of the plumage is so far advanced, why isn't it a 3cy graellsii or intermedius? The dark iris and dull bare parts suggest a 2cy, and the fact that the 2nd-generation primaries don't look too worn helps rule out the possibility too (the feathers would be a year old in a 3cy, rather than perhaps four to six months old in a 2cy fuscus).

It had been a year and a week since I was lucky enough to find a 2cy Baltic Gull in Lincolnshire, and some of the similarities were striking, as can be seen in the above pic, the Lincs bird on the left (also note the difference in appearance of the exposed primaries between the two birds of the same age in the righthand image). The Lincs bird was slightly behind this one in primary moult, but had dropped P1-2 by 23rd July.

Very similar bird by Hannu Koskinen in Finland in early July 2007
http://www.elisanet.fi/hj.koskinen/2cyfTASS20070706.html

Whilst this bird could be considered almost too advanced, even for fuscus, at least three out of a sample of 50 birds examined by Visa Rauste in Finland had replaced P1-2 by the first week of August.
Oh, and as I tried to relocate it after a big flush of the flock, I came across the juv mich I'd been hoping for! (under the Baltic in the flight shot above).

The word from the experts was generally inconclusive, as the quality of the images (all taken on my iPhone) didn't allow the primaries to be aged with 100% confidence. But nobody said no...

Goole Fields, 26th May 2104

I never intend to stop gulling in the spring. I still think it's full of larid potential, but work and life and lawn-mowing start to fill the days, and suddenly it's June and I've not been to the tip since March. Maybe it'll be a bit different this year...
An overnight (obviously) Nightjar survey on 25/26th May resulted in a few pleasant nocturnal surprises, and not long after dawn on a beautiful sunny morning I got another - my first mich of the summer. I didn't see it arrive, but suddenly there was a super-smart 3cy Yellow-legged Gull in the field next to me, accompanied by a 2cy LBB. I was looking into the rising sun, and it flew off at 4.55am, but it was great to see - a seasonal milestone in the life of a guller.

iPhone5S struggling into the dawn

Granville, 3rd Feb 2014

With only an hour free this afternoon, it was disappointing to see Candles deserted, Horsehay nearly so and Priorslee typically dead. So it all came down to the crematorium, across the fields from Granville landfill, and a sea of gulls greeted me. A very high proportion of LBBs was nice to see, and after a big flush, a cracking ad Caspian Gull appeared amongst the first gulls to resettle. After a little while it was joined by an ad mich, and despite a bit of a display, the mich ignored it.

Candles and Granville, 27th Jan 2014

After far too long away from the gulls (aside from a brief look at an impressive 2,400 large on the Buildwas floods on 13th which included the 1w Casp again and 6 michs (2 ads, 4cy, 3cy, 2 2cy)), it was time for a proper look for once. Unfortunately the River Severn has dropped and the floods have receded, meaning there is no reason for the gulls to use Buildwas any more, and even the tip itself was quiet. A steady trickle of gulls overhead, however, led me to a flock of c700 in a random grassy field nearby, but after only a couple of quick scans something spooked them and they dispersed. A single ad mich was my only reward.
Deciding on a drive around, I checked Horsehay and Priorslee but both were gull-free, and so I decided to drive down to Granville on the off chance. An adult Glauc had roosted at Belvide last night, which would have been nice. The sight of several hundred gulls greeted me, but an attempt at gaining permission to watch them was denied. A bit of sniffing around nearby fields followed, and I soon came across c1,200 large gulls loafing in a couple of fields by the crematorium off the A5. They were close, but views were tricky through the hedges, and it never quite felt like everything could be checked.

Eventually however a smart character materialised at the front of the flock - a new 2cy Caspian Gull. A nice bird, but there was something just not quite right about the head, and the greater coverts were a little more barred than you might like. However nothing put it outside the boundaries of what we increasingly realise to be a variable beast, just like all other large gulls. The silvery scaps with fine brown anchors, the worn brown coverts and tertials, the clean white underparts and hanging belly, and the long slender bill with a paler base all fitted the model, and a brief flight (alas captured only on my iPhone) revealed a perfect tail and an underwing that was certainly pale.

Candles, 19-20th Dec 2013

Brief ad Casp in the twilight

An unexpected time window meant I could stop at the tip on the way home from work, but I arrived at the same time as the rain, and within the hour it was sleeting and almost dark! Still, partly as a result of the weather, the gulls were feeding like mad and amongst the melee I soon picked out a gleaming white head with a beady eye. A few wing-stretches and aggressive interactions revealed the tell-tale details, but the bill however was brighter than the recent couple of adult Caspians, suggesting it must be another new individual - that's 4 this month including Jim's bird from 10th.

The next day I had our smallest with me so restricted myself to a short lunchtime vigil by Horsehay Pool with a bag of chips to keep her busy. No Casps this time, but the juv Iceland Gull dropped in for a quick scrub up, despite having been missing from Salop and Belvide for a week. A few interesting grey mantles dropped in too, including a hulking bruiser of a 3w mich, a presumed hybrid HGxLB, and finally a mystery gull with a hint of 3w cach about it...
 

Big 3w mich

Hybrid type

3w mich? cach? hybrid?