Gull's and Crossbill's!

21/11/13

A journey out to Sheepwash was rewarded with a LITTLE EGRET which was feeding along the river. Just before dark however, the bird flew over onto Pumphouse pool to roost with the ever present Grey Herons,

24/11/13

A trip up to Cannock with Neil Duggan was very productive for winter Gulls. Our first stop was at Kingswood lakeside. my favorite gulling spot in the midlands, where i quickly located a stunning giant of a 1st winter CASPIAN GULL on the roof of the ARC building. It was fairly distant from our viewpoint, but on 60x through Neils scope i managed a few shots before it flew off.

With the light now rapidly fading, we decided to head off to Chaseater to look for the white wingers that have been present. The first of the white wingers i picked up was a 1st winter GLAUCOUS GULL, which was showing distantly. As if by coincidence though, having just guided the crowd onto the bird, another white winger swam through the scope view! The 2nd winter ICELAND GULL. Awesome!

The Iceland eventually moved far closer and we had some very nice views as it swam around

 off the powerboat club. 

1/12/13

Not a surprise at all.

When i heard news of a small flock of TWO-BARRED CROSSBILL just down the road from my weekend residence at Postmeplain i can't say it came as a shock.

Needless to say, the next morning i was staking out the area, and having seemingly taken the long walk around we reached the crowd in the distance, and immediately the 'trumpeting' call of the Two-Bars!

Within seconds, a flock of around 15 Common Crossbill flew over my head and landed in the top of a larch, scanning through them and a male on the top left hand side of the tree had 2 massive wing bars! A TWO-BAR! Quickly however, the flock flew back into the pines. I moved up, and soon after i was watching 3 of these beauties (2 males and a female) in another clump of Larch, calling very frequently! After around 30 minuites however, the flock decimated, and the birds suddenly became very elusive.

I did however, manage to get onto a stunning male which perched on the top of a pine calling for a few seconds before flying off.

With the birds having moved off, and the crowd becoming more and more agitating, i took my chance and also left to explore the area.

I soon located a calling bird, and then i saw another flying across the Postemplain compound, also calling.

I took the decision to the explore a ride to the NE of where the birds had been seen, and i was rewarded when a new female TWO-BAR, my 4th for the day, dropped into the top of the larches, a completly different individual to the bright green bird i had seen in company with the 2 males.

A long wait ensured, getting occasional views of the birds as they flew around, untill eventually, 2 males settled in a nearby Larch, giving stunning views!

What birds!

Once the birds flew, i waited for a little longer, but the cold got the better of me, and headed home.

MB

Staffordshire Gull Watching!

19/02/13
Staffordshire is generally one of the best counties within the WMBC region for Gulls, primarily because of the large Gull roosts that appear at the counties larger reservoirs  and for an avid Gull watched like me, Little can beat the Gull roost at Chasewater. So we decided to spend the day Cannock area of the county, taking in the Chase, kingswood and Chasewater.

The day didnt start very promisingly, as untill about 11 am thick fog covered the landscape, meaning we didnt leave untill it had started to burn off. Following this we slogged it around the chase for a few hours, with very little reward, with the only birds seen being a Yellowhammer in the car park and 2 Raven cronking overhead. 10 Roe deer were showing in the valleys, including a single stunning stag!

With half the day gone already, we decided to head to my new found favorite gulling spot of Kingswood lakeside following our sucessful visit back in January. Immidiatly upon driving up the road it was apparent there were hundreds of Gulls on the main pool, and there was around a thousand or so circling over the tip. We had a brief stop around the back of the first factory to have a look through the circling Gulls before moving back to find somewhere to park back near the main pool because some numpty had blocked the entire parking space with a single car!
We found somewhere to park and found a viewpoint of the lake, looking into the sun to have a quick scan through before we move to a better position. It was only a few seconds in before i was rewarded when the darkest juvenile GLAUCOUS GULL was sat on the water among the commoner Gulls! I could see there was a few dog walkers approaching the lakeside, so quickly continued scanning, and only another 20 or so Gulls to the right of the dark juvenile Glauc i picked out an absolutely stunning smack in the face 1st winter CASPIAN GULL! But i again continued scanning without stopping for photos as i knew the birds would fly very soon, and with only 100c Gulls out of the 700+ gone through, i had a few to go. I continued scanning further and further into the reflected sunlight, as far as i dared infact, and on nearing the end of the flock i was struck by a completely white Gull. And i mean WHITE! Back on its huge size was apparent, and when it turned its head showing its massive bi-coloured bill confirmed it to be a 2nd GLAUCOUS GULL!

As the dark Glauc and the Caspian were the closest out of the trio, i aimed the scope back at them, grabbed for my camera and took some record shots into the sun. The dark Glauc was easy to pick out again, because it really was a beast! Easilly one of the larger examples of Glauc you can get, and a very dark one at that, being one of the darkest possible biscuit colours you can get!

I also got some quick video footage of the bird as it swam around. The back-lit image actually emphasizes the pale transparent quality to the birds primary's. Its clear from the birds structure how much of a beast the bird is, with a huge chewing gum pink and black bi-coloured bill, chunky head, and very short primary projection all adding to this image. What a bird!



Scanning back to the right again, i picked up the CASPIAN again, and got a few photos before, as expected, almost 2/3rds of the flock were flushed as the owner of the dog then proceeded to let it then jump into the water.
In my quick picture, you can see the Caspian-esque structure so reminiscent of Caspian, with its long Bill, pale head, fairly dark 'shawl', completely dark eye placed well forward, fairly small, pear shaped head and pale back base colour combined with its large size. All this becomes very distinctive after some studying, all of these amounting to a fairly standard stunning 1st winter CASPIAN GULL.

With a fair chunk of the flock now gone, we now changed our position to view the lake, so that more of the flock was out of direct back light.

And i was overjoyed when scanning through the flock that this absolute stunner shone back at me!

Is there anything other to say that Wow? Again, an absolute BEAST of a GLAUCOUS GULL, it completely dwarthed the LBBG adjacent to it, in every single way.

So, 2 GLAUCOUS GULL, both at completely opposite ends of the spectrum of plumage at 1st winter, and both absolute brutes!

This bird is obviously very very faded, being almost an entirely white bird, but there are a few small clues to the birds true age. Its fully black eye being the most prominent. It is also apparent that the bird had many juvenile type feathers, with darker edges, revealing that the bird is infact a faded 1w rather than an older bird.

I went back to scanning the flock again, and i was amazed when the CASPIAN GULL again jumped out at me, with slightly better light this time.

Additionally to the points mentioned earlier, Caspian Gull also have fairly pale white underwings, which contrasts to most other 1st winter Gulls, and if only to further secure the identification, the bird then decided to have a quick stretch for a video!



CASPIAN GULL is one of those really birder's birds, and probably one that not many of the readers of this blog will be interested in (Well done if your still reading). Gulls are one of those very specialist subjects that a fair few birders shy away from, but even non-gullers have to admit the potential prizes that could become apparent in the thousands of Gulls that arrive here each winter. The sheer complexity of the subject only helping to heighten my enjoyment from these greatly overlooked species.
It does make you wonder just how under recorded birds like Caspian Gull are (Less so for the more obvious white wingers), but recent trends shows the midlands as being one of the best places to catch up with them, so get checking those flocks people!

We started to leave for the Chasewater roost, walking past a few large Gulls sat fairly close of the water. I knew the Caspian had been fairly close into the bank at times, and i was glad to see that one of the closest birds was infact the CASPIAN GULL!
I grabbed the camera and fired of a series before taking some video!

Moving onto Chasewater i was fairly dissapointed to see the Gull flock had again pitched up at the north end, but a section of the flock was within scopable distance. I scanned the entirety of the Reservoir  picking up 19 Goldeneye. We stayed until dark, and the birds did eventually come slightly closer, allowing me to pick up the familiar 2nd winter GLAUCOUS GULL that i saw in January. A distinctively different bird to the other 2 birds, with fairly tatty plumage, which is very 'blodgy', with alternating white and grubby brown patches. A few Yellow-legged gulls were also in, but my biggest prize was the one that completed the 'set', when i picked out the dinky ICELAND GULL, a very small and petite bird, small, cute looking head  and long primary tips. Still a decent biscuit colour on the bird too, just a shame it was too far away and came in too late for any photos.

But as i have said, that completed my 'set' of rare winter Gulls for the day. 3 GLAUCOUS GULL, 1 ICELAND GULL and 1 CASPIAN GULL, as well as all the usuals. It was about as good a winters day gulling as your going to get!
MB

Gulling with local birder's

17/02/13
Local Redditch birder Neil Duggan had kindly offered an evening out at the biggest Gull roost in the region, at Chasewater, and Matt G the Ealswood Birder and i tagged along in the hope of jamming in on some of that White winger action, and checking a few of the nearby Gulling sites in the hope of picking something up.

We were meeting at Upton Warren, and i got there early to have a check of the Flashes. A Lapwing flock was commuting between the fields and the 2nd flash, making it awkward to get a decent view from the feeder hide. Upon exiting the hide i was watching 2 Goldcrest in a trackside bush when Matt walked down the path towards me that he'd just had a Golden Plover in the Lapwing flock! We moved back into the feeder hide and started scanning the Lapwings at the back of the flash, and there it was, a Golden Plover sitting among them! We watched it walking around in the flock before taking flight and giving us some nice views. Cue a digi-scoped record shot.

Heading north, we first dropped into the West Midlands gull hotspot of Stubbers Green which was practically devoid... A few Great Black Backs and Lessers. Errr, not the best of starts.

It was still some time until the roost, so we then headed over to my new found Gulling spot, at Kingswood lakeside. At least we had Gulls this time! But again it seemed out luck wasn't there, as in the flock were only the expected Herring, LBBG and BHG. Scanning the Gulls flying up above the tip i got exited when i saw a Gull with white wing tips circling with about 10 other Gulls. Sadly however, it didn't seem to be one of the true white wingers. Despite having obvious white wingtips, the had a fairly dark grey 'saddle' on its back, obviously wrong for either of the hoped for species. The bird was at some distance however, but in good light we agreed to call it as an abbarent gull sp.

A lot of the birds were staring to fly over to Chasewater so we decided to follow in the hope we would have more luck there, and then it just got worse. The birds had obviously decided to pitch up at the furthest reaches of the Reservoir, right at the north end, making viewing from the south end almost impossible.

2 Goldeneye were showing fairly well

As was this Common Gull

A adult MEDITERRANEAN GULL was picked out of the closest large flock of BHG at the end of the dam. A stunning 90 % summer plumaged bird, with bright white primary's and an almost fully black hood. If you ask me, one of the most stunning of the small Gulls, and probably one of my favorites!

As the light got worse, i picked up another adult MED Gull, this time a winter plumaged bird, which i believe Neil got onto, but quickly disappeared within the flock (A very common occurrence at Gull roosts). These two alone made my day as it was the one Gull that i had missed on previous roosts this year, so it was nice to have caught up with two of them!

Going back onto the large Gulls they had still failed to move any closer. A adult Yellow legged Gull was showing in the birds in front of the sailing club but that's as good as it got. Many birder's didn't even bother to stay around as they knew the task was almost impossible. But the three of us soldiered on until dark, with absolutely no reward. The day got even worse later that night when news emerged on what the gullers had seen from the west shore.

So yeah, not the most 'to plan' day you could have had, and it is a real shame that we didn't pick up any white wingers, as at the time any would have been lifers for my companions. Sorry i couldn't get you them, i'll just have to owe you a repeat visit so we can get them!

MB

Glauc and Ice, Gulls, Gulls, Gulls

5/01/13
Gulls are very high on the agenda in January, and because of this, we decided to 'hit' one of the biggest roosts in the region, at Chasewater. However, we headed out early, so that we would be able to check a few of the local sites earlier. As luck would have it, both Martyn Y and Kay D had the same idea (Be sure to check out both of their blogs after reading this), and were checking through the Gulls there when the came up trumps with a superb Glauc!

Our journey from Kidderminster to Cannock was quite tedious, but we made it there! We decided to drop into the West Mids Gull capital of Stubbers Green for a quick check and go. And we were in luck, as just as we had pulled up, the assembled birders had already clocked a YELLOW LEGGED GULL. A nice well marked 2w bird, and, as usual with Stubbers, we were getting fairly good views!

I cant claim to have extensive knowledge regarding this age, so it was nice to be able to study one. It was nice to have the bird adjacent to all GBBG, LBBG and Herring Gull for comparison  and this bird fits in nicely between Herring and Lesser.

As winter is 'THE' time for White-wingers (and with news emerging of both Glauc and Iceland) we decided to shoot off there before the Gulls switched over to Chasewater to roost. We pulled up at Kingswood soon after, and after a scan of the small amount of Gulls viewable from where we were parked, we were told that both the 'white wingers' were perched up together on the roof viewable from the other side!

As you would expect, we quickly shot around there, joined the birders, grabbed a look through one of the scopes and bam! GLAUCOUS and ICELAND GULL sitting adjacent to each other on the factory roof! Can Gulling really be much better than that?

While setting up my scope however, the call went up that the Glauc was flying, and coming straight for us, ditching my scope, i put my camera to my bins, aimed at the twisting and turning Glauc as it flew directly over our heads! Getting around 10 pictures in the time. Once the bird dropped below the bank, i picked up the camera. All but three of the photos has only sky in them. One of the three a translucent wingtip, picture two a out of focus Glauc, and Pic 3. This one!

A 2nd winter GLAUCOUS GULL.

A digi-binned flight shot of a Glauc!

Moving my attention back to the Gulls atop the roof, i had a look at the adult ICELAND GULL, which was a very neat looking bird. Infact, it was my first adult type bird, as i dipped the bird when it was present last winter! Unlike the Yellow leg though, there is less to'study' on adult white wingers, so i just chose to enjoy the views of the bird. After a while, it also took flight back over to the tip for a pre roost feed. 

 Can you see it?

What about with this slightly cropped version?

Following this, it was onward to the Roost, which mopped up the rest of the 'scarce large gulls'. Luckilly, the Gulls had chosen to land fairly close to the south shore, giving awesome views! Not long after we had arrived, i picked out  a stunning adult CASPIAN GULL, and after guiding people onto it, people seemed to agree about its identity. Following this, i picked out the GLAUCOUS as it swam about in the throngs. A wait ensured before the ICELAND was picked out, and eventually news filtered to the other end of the crowd, and i was able to spot it. I was quite struck by this particular bird, as it seemed to have a very 'attenuated' rear end. I know this is a common feature with iceland, but i found it particularly obvious in this bird. Its small size was also very evident, it was miniscule! However, it always remained fairly far away, so therefore, i could only take some pictures of the Glauc. However i'm not complaining! Look at that beast!

To finish off, i also picked out 2 further YELLOW LEGGED GULL's

Always an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon in January!
MB

BLOGGERS DAY OUT!

hey im the first to get this out
12/12/09.

richards and martyns take on the day can be viewed here soon, well maybe.(just click on respective name)

for me it was a bloody early get up, 6AM for me to get ready and have breakfast and all that usual stuff.

i was picked up by martyn at 7:15 and we were on our way to stubbers green.

we got out the car and walked towards the lake in FREEZING cold weather.it was really cold,a small flock of lapwing was flying around 'wheezing' in the cold conditions(even they had colds). we were soon joined by another birder from birdfourum,rob who was also waiting for the caspian. a female goosander flew over hinting at what was to came,soon after the gulls started pilleing onto the lake,but the first large gull we saw was up the top end of the lake by the sailing club, it was flying about but imidiatly looked good, we changed our position and the gull was on a boyd. it was the CASPIAN GULL(lifer 200),i was happy to have got my 200th lifer and i celerbrated by,well, by looking at the caspian. here's a film in low mouring light.

and a GBBG

this video shows a few caspian features,eg the long straw coloured legs,protruding breast,small head and dark eye,in flight it was also easily identifiable,with its broken tail band with almost aall black primarys with black running to its elbow,and as the bird shown just 15 mins into the trip it was a great start.

also here was a load of common gulls(10c)

after some time looking for a yellow leg failed but 13 greater black backs were nice to see as was about 8 goosander(including fly overs) and a little grebe. not much later we were joined by richard and he got a few pics of the caspian, more scanning of the flock produced just the usual species.then the pagers started bleeping away,'90 pink footed goose over uttoxeter with a bewicks on the lake' '100 pink foots over ingestre' '85 pink foots over berry hill fields'

so, time to head north..........

...... to chasewater

we pulled into the car park in search of an adult med gull, we walked to the lake( keep calling it a lake cause i cant spell resivior) scanned the gulls and mart said got the med gull,it wasent long before i was on a crisp,beatiful,white winged mediterranian gull,a stunner of a gull,with its blood red bill and legs glowwing in the sunshine(yes it was sunny).

so how about that beauty,what about this tired film of it yawning,lazy thing.

we spent some time scanning the lake for anything,but then right in the distance,just above the horizon we saw........

.....NOTHING absolutly nothing

well anyway back to the med gull,what a beutiful looking bird they are,they always raise you spirits everytime you see one:

we then decided to check the south shore,a big raft of goldeneye was diving just offshore,and martyn pointed out a few shovler and gadwall forther out on the lake,and as upton warren doesent hold goldeneye too oftern i decided to take the opp to get some pics and films:

a good count of 56 great c grebes were out on the water.

richard wanted to get the whinchat at tamworth and i did too (secretly) so after a bit we carried on to tameside NR.

well this was the easiest of the lot to get,it was simple. we parked up,crossed the road up the bank and there it was, im not kidding it was that easy. but saying this the bird did fly around a lot,but then remained perched on a twig or a tree for quite long periods of time. this site loks amazing, the stuff you could imagine turning up there would make your mouth water,and all this in the centre of tamworth next to a main road bordered by house, unbelievable. and although the lake was quite small there were a good range of waterbirds,13 lapwing,3 snipe,8 wigeon and 4 gadwal,as well as 2 chiffchaff. why cant it be like this on lickhill(although lickhill has a few suprises,see next post),

(its on the twig in the centre if your wondering)

after a very enjoyable time with the whinchat we decided to go looking for the smew at fishers mill.but to put it short,we dipped, after a seeingly very long walk we reached the pits,to be honest the habitat was and looked amazing,no wonder the glossy ibis(s) decided to tur up here,it looked very mediteranian(if you subtract the very muddy paths), goldeneye seemed to be everywhere,with 10c noted on the lakes, on the northermost lake 2 redshank were feeding and 4 shelduck were resting,between 2 lakes in scrubby areas were a pair of stonechat.this compleating the pair of 'common' chats in a day. they preformed superbly and for once i looked more at these birds than at the lake:

a common gull was seen to land with a few black heads,on the way back martyn pisshed out a chiffchaff,which shown quite well, a bullfinch was heard(one was seen and heard briefly and the way down as was treecreeper), so now onwards on upwards,driving through prime merlin habitat(non were seen) we stumbled on a small flock of only 190!!! mute swan. we pulled over and had a quick scan though,but no wild swans were seen :(

croxall pool was our next destination,and in my terms it was a great desision. this was only to be a quick in and out stop but a quite big flock of ducks up the far end got us investigating, half way up the path we stopped and scanned.i was scanning a flock of wigeon and tufties and then i panned onto a small goose. PINK FOOTED GOOSE i calmly said. the others quickly got onto it and i was praised by my discovery. and with the big movement of pink feet over this area earlier this bird was WILD!! even martyn said it was wild(could i please have it in writing as its not oftern you say a goose on its own is wild) this bird proberbly has the best credentials to be a wild bird so im happy.

throughout the time the bird was watched it was wary of the canadian geese giving it even better credentials.

but it wasent long and the bird done this:

it flew north and wasent seen again.this was the ONLY bird i saw before anybody else over the whole trip,so i am very happy with it. but here it was not only the pink footed goose, there was also a huge winter flock of 33 redshank,33 redshank,thats an amazing total for winter in the middle of stafordshire.the usual ducks were presant including 8 goldeneye 8 wigeon but a female pintail was a bonous.

a check of a lake not far from here didnt produce much but a little egret flew over and there was 2 shelduck, in the surrounding fields was a flock of fieldfare/redwing and also a load of goldfinch.

then it was back to chasewater for the gull roost from the south shore,by this time my scope was useless and i relied on martyns and richards scopes to look through,the adult med gull was again picked up quite quickly, the roost size was huge but was still increasing,i estimated about 10000 birds rooseted on the lake,proberbly more:

the flock covered the res. from side to side, 3 yellow legged gulls were picked out by martyn but apart from a couple of possibles we failed to locate the caspian gulls. even without any 'white wingers' or caspains the sheer spectacle of that amount of gulls is a fitting end to any day..

what a blast of a day today was,with great company and great birds, so all i can say is.....

whens the next one?

thks to martyn and richard for the invite

MB