Caspian Gulls in York!

Morning walk produced a single Barn Owl sat on a snag in front of a rising sun which was a beautiful start to the day!  Not a lot else though, other than a few Tree Sparrow and a flock of Long-tailed Tit. Mid-morning got a bit more interesting as a Redpoll came into the garden briefly (pictures below).

I decided to have lunch at a local tip (as you do), mainly because Tim had found a 1st winter Caspian Gull there. Unfortunately the bird in question flew off as I was approaching but Tims pictures did look rather nice! As we thought about how to find some gulls we picked up a Merlin shooting through, which sent a flock of Redwing crazy!

A bit of manoeuvring and we found some gulls to look through. We went back and forth through them, picking out a 1st winter Lesser Black-backed Gull in amongst the hundreds of Herring Gulls. Suddenly an adult gull with a bright white head popped into view. It looked good for an adult Caspian Gull. We watched it for a while, getting all of the salient features - a highlight of watching this bird was when it did its 'albatross-posture' (see photo 449 in Gulls of Europe, Asia and North America - Olsen, K.M. & Larsson, H. 2003). I got a record shot of the bird on my phone that doesn't really do it any justice, however check Tims blog for photos of this (and the 1st winter bird). Hopefully further trips to the tip over the coming weeks will turn up more interesting birds (Tim also had a 1st winter Yellow-legged Gull here last weekend).

A flock of 18 Pink-footed Geese appeared from the southeast and dropped in and landed out of view.

Better looks at the Caspian Gull, and an ice-skating Pheasant!

Had a quick look in at Wheldrake Ings this morning on my way to my dusk owl survey and pretty much the only gull sat out there was the 1st winter Caspian Gull found by Tim on Saturday! Result! Much better looks than I got on Saturday. I even got to see the legs with the Darvic - again too far to get the code on this occasion. Its a real cracker and stands out like a sore thumb (especially when there's no other birds there!)

I even managed to get a couple of phone-scoped shots on my new blackberry (below)





Whilst watching the gull I was momentarily distracted by the following ice-skating Pheasant... (again phone-scoped)





The survey was pretty dull, and very cold. However the highlight of Red Kite, Common Crossbill, Siskin, Tawny Owl, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Buzzard, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk made the evening slightly more enjoyable.

Gull Fest in York: Caspo, Iceland and Med Gulls!

Some good birds in York today, I got a message from Tim telling me he'd found an adult Med Gull at Heslington, another good record for the site, there has now been several records of this species from the site over the last year or so.

A bit later in the afternoon and another phone call from Tim, 1st Winter Caspian Gull at Wheldrake. This was too tempting to ignore. I was just heading out the door to go check North Duffield but this made me change my plans. I got to Wheldrake as quickly as possible and made my way to Tower Hide where Tim was stood. Luckily the bird was still present and was stood amongst the rapidly increasing gull flock. Got good views of the bird, very smart! It had a yellow darvic ring. A great local record.

Interestingly a yellow darvic ringed Caspian Gull (apparently from Poland) was seen and photographed well (below) on 23rd October 2011 at Spurn - the 3rd site record, presumably the bird seen today at Wheldrake is the same bird? Hopefully it will get seen again and we can get the code.


Caspian Gull - Photo John Hewitt - more on Spurn Bird Observatory Website

Not to miss out on the national Iceland Gull fest a 2nd winter bird dropped in before getting blocked up to view by all the other gulls. There was a lot of gulls tonight so tomorrow could be interesting for those lucky enough to be there.

At 1650 we heard the distinctive sound of distant Whooper Swans as they flew onto the Ings to find somewhere to roost. An enjoyable end to the day!