Day out at Dungeness 16/12

Had a good day out at Dungeness with Rich and Dante today. We had a six and a half Caspian Gulls - two first-winters (a really nice one and a less nice one), two third-winters and two adults plus a hybrid first-winter.

Most of these were scattered around Burrowes Pit at the RSPB reserve during the day, although the better of the two first-winters showed well near the fishing boats for a little while in the morning, albeit not long enough to really blow it away - but thanks to Martin for letting us know about it. Numbers were generally quite low around the fishing boats today, presumably due to the settled weather conditions.

First-winter Caspian Gull, Dungeness, Kent, 16 December 2017

I also managed a few photos of the hybrid, a bird that I assume is, as Rich would say, 'German muck'. At a distance it looked quite Casp-like but, on better views, clearly wasn't, looking much more like a Herring with some Caspian qualities at closer range. It's quite a washed out bird and, in flight, looks pretty Herring-like with a huge window on the inner primaries. Underwing was pale, being a latte colour.

Caspian x Herring Gull, Dungeness, Kent, 16 December 2017

It was otherwise a very pleasant, if cold, day's birding around the Dungeness peninsula. We enjoyed singles of Long-tailed Duck and Slavonian Grebe at Lade Pits, a pleasing 16 Bewick's Swans and a flyover Merlin from Cockles Bridge and Great Egret, two Ravens and six Goosanders on the RSPB reserve.

Fuerteventura, 8-10 December

Fuerteventura is a cheap place to visit in the depths of winter and, with its targets all relatively easy to see, it can comfortably be cleaned up in a weekend. With little else on for the second weekend of December, I'd booked flights with Jet2 from Stansted (£130 return including a hold bag) at the end of November.

Fortuitously, a few days after booking, the Western Palearctic's fifth Dwarf Bittern was found just a stone's throw from the airport, and it was no surprise then that this proved the first target on arrival on Friday afternoon. I was accompanied by Ed Stubbs, who'd been tempted to book his flights when the bittern broke, and we were enjoying this mega Afrotropical vagrant within minutes of arriving on site on Friday afternoon.

Dwarf Bittern, Llanos Pelados, Fuerteventura, 8 December 2017

Also here were a couple of pairs of the local race of African Blue Tit, at least five Fuerteventura Chats (the first I'd seen since I was a young lad on holiday with my parents), several Egyptian Vultures and a variety of waders including Green Sandpipers and Little Ringed Plovers. As it transpired, this was actually one of the birdiest spots we visited on the entire island - no wonder it's produced both the bittern and (apparently) Allen's Gallinule in recent weeks.

Ed had booked a very reasonable apartment in Puerto del Rosario (£20 pppn) - dodgy door aside, it was excellent value. After some tapas and a few cervezas with Ed and Alan Lewis, we got our heads down.

We were at Tindaya for first light and had soon bagged a couple of Houbara Bustards - a new bird for both of us. We saw a total of five, but none was really close enough to be well photographed. Just a single Cream-coloured Courser was seen plus a handful of flyover Black-bellied Sandgrouse and the usual Southern Grey Shrikes, Berthelot's Pipits, Lesser Short-toed Larks and Trumpeter Finches. It was then back to the airport to collect Rich Bonser and chauffeur him to the bittern which, again, was showing on arrival - sounds like we've been quite lucky as there are stories of birders waiting for hours. The bittern showed terrifically, albeit in the strong early afternoon sunshine, as did a pair of Fuerteventura Chats.

 Dwarf Bittern, Llanos Pelados, Fuerteventura, 9 December 2017

Fuerteventura Chats, Llanos Pelados, Fuerteventura, 9 December 2017

We spent some time searching sites along the coast, all of which turned to be absolutely pants, so we headed over to the reservoir at Los Molinos. Here there was a throng of noisy Ruddy Shelducks, a male European Stonechat and a few Spoonbills and Snipe.

Ruddy Shelducks at Los Molinos, 9 December 2017

Another pleasant evening of Spanish cuisine and beers followed, with another early morning start at Tindaya on the Sunday producing at least four more bustards and, finally, a showy one that walked across the track in front of us.

Houbara Bustard, Tindaya, Fuerteventura, 10 December 2017

The less said about the rest of the weekend (i.e. waiting in airports for delayed flights), the better.

Juvenile Caspian Gull in Peterborough

It's almost inevitable that I see my first juvenile Caspian Gull of the season in Peterborough around the Birdfair weekend. Here's the 2017 offering, with a strikingly dark tail and mucky underwing but otherwise looking pretty classic.

Juvenile Caspian Gull, Dogsthorpe Tip, Peterborough, 17 August 2017

More gulls, I'm afraid

Unless I go to the wetland centre, the mid-summer period totally lacks in decent birding opportunities in West London. Apart from the gulls, of course.

The first juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls have started to appear. Each session on 'my' stretch of the Thames between Craven Cottage, Fulham, and Chiswick Pier produces up to five michahellis, usually always involving a different selection of birds. I've had at least three different juveniles over the past couple of weeks, although most of the birds seen have been 2cy and 3cy, with the one or two older birds thrown in for good measure.

Juvenile Yellow-legged Gull, Fulham, 23 July 2017

2cy Herring (left) and 2cy Yellow-legged Gulls, Fulham, 23 July 2017

You don't really expect to see Caspian Gulls in July but I've been fortunate enough to be blessed with two scraggy first-summers on the river near me over the past two weeks. The first was a bird I've not seen before, German-ringed 'X307' - this bird having been noted regularly in East London since it was first seen by Jamie Partridge at Thames Barrier Park on 25 September 2016 (here are a couple of nice photos of it taken by Rich in March). It's from a mixed (predominately Caspian) colony on the Polish border but to me this bird doesn't obviously stand out as a bird of mixed heritage, I thought it looked fine as a first-winter and still think the same looking at it now.

2cy Caspian Gull 'X307', Fulham, 21 July 2017

The second bird, first seen just two days after X307's appearance, was a more familiar face - 'G0UT', a Thames-ringed Casp that first visited this stretch of the Thames back in late March, a few days after it was ringed at Pitsea. Here are a few pics of it from back then. I'd say this one is a bit less impressive than X307, showing a few more hints that Herring Gull might be mixed in somewhere down the line. A few images from recent visits below, it seems pretty regular at the moment so here's hoping it hangs around here for a while.

 23 July

31 July

And a few bits of 'interest':

4cy Herring x Lesser Black-backed Gull, 29 July

Juvenile Great Black-backed Gull, 29 July. This species must breed somewhere along this stretch of the Thames - I see at least one pair of adults throughout the year and two youngsters present last week were very fresh. There are usually a few immatures hanging around as well.

Yellow-legged Gulls are back!

With a handful of lingering immatures mincing around throughout the spring and early summer, I guess it's fair to say that Yellow-legged Gulls have never actually left London. However, the annual mid-summer build-up of michahellis is now well underway and my first visit to the Thames for a couple of months revealed a handful of these entertaining birds. Curiously, none were juveniles - in fact most were 3cy.

Black-headed Gulls are also coming back in numbers - no Med yet though.

And, as always, it's worth keeping an eye out for rings. Here's a North Thames Gull Group bird that I'd not seen before.

Caspian Tern on my old patch

Mike Weedon scored heavily with an adult Caspian Tern at Baston & Langtoft Pits, my old stomping ground during my teenage years. Though a regular vagrant to Britain, it's an undeniably impressive species and, with a clear afternoon on the cards, I couldn't resist twitching it.

By the time I arrived it had been missing for the best part of 45 minutes but, after a nervous wait, was picked up fishing over some of the more mature pits in the middle of the (private) complex. Views were initially distant but it then had the decency to perform a close fly-by as it headed back to its favoured roosting spot on the new wader scrape on the north side of the pits - this fantastic site has been producing great birds for a couple of years now, and finally it's had its first true rarity.

Incidentally the bird bears a red ring, identifying it as the individual seen previously in Carmarthenshire and Northamptonshire. The red ring seems to suggest it's Swedish, though I'm not sure if anyone has managed to read the ring fully yet. It'll be interesting to see where it pops up next, assuming it doesn't hang around at BLGP.

A few grab shots below - hurriedly taken using sub-optimal settings and against a grey sky, and not really in focus. But you can tell what it is!

On the wrong side of the planet ...

Time is not really on my side at the moment due to various ongoing work commitments (the fruits of which should be available to see soon at birdguides.com), but here are a few record shots of the Grey-tailed Tattler that I was fortunate enough to come across in the famous quarry at Cabo da Praia, Terceira, Azores, while leading a tour there last Friday. Unfortunately we only had an hour in the strong mid-afternoon sunshine to watch this East Asian vagrant before our early-evening flight back to São Miguel. This represents the first for the Azores and Portugal as well as being just the fifth for the Western Palearctic.

As and when time allows I hope to feed back a bit more on recent trips to Taiwan and Colombia, as well as the Azores tour.

Grey-tailed Tattler, Cabo da Praia, 7 July 2017