Folkestone Harbour

A brief gull watch after the eco-poetry workshop.

I think this is a first-wintered plumaged Great Black-backed Gull, just moulted into its first winter plumage. It is likely to have moulted fairly recently, probably in October according to the books. The fairly clear chequered look is quite characteristic. The scapulars are quite fresh and with anchor-shaped patterns . The coverts are quite whitish overall, and therefore contrast with the darker secondaries beneath.  The primaries are quite well pointed, rather than rounded. The secondaries are relatively dark compared to later plumages. The bill is entirely black. The head is relatively pale, a fairly clear distinction from the juvenile.

This was the ringed young Great Black-backed Gull, which I have reported back to the Norwegian Ringing Group based in one of the southernmost peninsulas of the country. I am currently guessing that it is a second winter bird.

Here is an adult Great Black-backed Gull on the foul mud in the harbour.

This is I think a young Herring Gull, probably a first winter from the pointed tips to the primaries. The eye seems very high and far forward.

I saw a Common Guillemot in the outer harbour earlier on, and watched it "swimming downwards" as it dived.

A Long-tailed Duck was also reported, but I was in the middle of becoming a poet when it was supposedly seen opposite "Rock-Salt".

Reculver

Bony's Gull at Oare

Bonaparte's Gull, Chroicocephalus philadelphia, a rare wanderer from America, the gull on the right of course! I wonder where this bird spends its summers, and who with!

A blustery Leybourne

A walk around the West side of the Ocean, and then on either arm of the Railway Lake. Most of the same birds as yesterday, with a few different shots.

And a shot in flight of a first winter bird. The two outer tail feathers are the last to moult so maybe haven't developed their black tips properly yet??

There was a beautiful Moorhen just by the bridge:

Barden Lake at Haysden

A quick 30 minutes down at Barden Lake with the new lens, but only the old EOS 350D camera, as the 7D is in for cleaning and repair - hopefully! The short session was very enjoyable, but also very cold without my coat! 

This is an adult bird, with the head hood just starting to appear I think, looking good in reasonable afternoon light! The primaries show the white tips on the primaries quite clearly.

This is another adult bird, but in this case there is rather less evidence of the hood appearing. Also there are fewer signs of the white tips to the primary flight feathers.

This next one's hood has also not started yet. We are back with rather more obviously white-tipped primaries again.

This is another bird I reckon. The white eyelids are quite visible against the dark of the head, and overall it looks very like the bird at the top of the page:

The next photograph is of a first winter bird. There is quite a lot of wear on the secondaries (?), which are badly (slightly white) "fringed" at the margins. There is a lot of brown in this bird's wings, this is fairly standard where none of the wing feathers have been replaced. The primaries, which have also been around since the bird first fledged last summer, look to be a uniform brown, with no white tips, which may have worn away! The beak (and legs) are generally (as in this picture) orange rather than red, as is characteristic for these young birds.

This is still the same bird taking off. I do like the water drops!

A nice probably female adult Herring Gull, Larus argentatus argenteus on the signpost in the lake.

Little Gulls at Cresswell, and Druridge Pools

What a pretty little gull, that I didn't take enough notice of!

Two Avocets, 7 Black-tailed Godwits, 4 Shelduck, 1 Grey Plover, 2 Redshank, 4 Mallard, about half a dozen Tufted Duck, and a wonderful view of a Sedge Warbler. A Newcastle birder told me that there were two Reed Warblers singing behind the hide, but I didn't hear either of them, a bit worrying. A good group of House Martins with a few Swallows

At Druridge Pools I took Monty along the path to the two hides that I had found yesterday. There were Greylag Geese, 1 male Shoveller, Mallards, House Martins, Swallows, Black-headed Gulls. On the path on the way back I tried to photograph a Whitethroat, and heard Willow Warblers and Chiff Chaffs.

Traeth Lavan

A female Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba  (ssp yarellii) in breeding plumage was by a watery flush in a pasture just inland of the path. A grey mantle, with a dark grey as opposed to shiny black cap, black not connected between nape and throat makes it a female;.a blotchy dark (rather than uniform medium) grey on the back, significant areas of mid-grey - very stylish - (rather than light grey) on the flanks, makes it a female ssp yarellii rather than a female ssp alba. The brown flight feathers suggest this is a first summer bird, retaining the juvenile primaries from last year. The greater coverts have greyish fringes but quite broad white tips, which apparently also fits yarellii. There is little blending of the grey back into the grey-black of the nape as you might expect in a female alba.

More of a hint of a darkish rump in the picture below:

This looks more clearly like a blackish rump. The pictures of this one bird do vary a bit with the light (compare the first picture here) but this looks quite diagnostic.

Saturday Cliffe

2 Pintail, 12 Coot, 70 Shoveller, 200 Avocet, 300 Black-tailed Godwit, 100 Dunlin, 30 Shelduck, 4 Mallard, 12 Tufted Duck,

The Black-headed Gulls were displaying noisily over all the islands on the site. This is a small island fairly close to the track up by the side of Radar towards Flamingo, where 3 possible (???) pairs were perched.

The central two gulls here have adopted a "head-down" posture which does not seem to be exactly described in the literature I have been able to find. There is certainly discussion of "the choking posture" but these gulls seem to hold the head-down posture for quite a while, and I see no sign of head movements or of mock choking, so I remain confused.

As quite commonly described, the cloaca seem quite swollen in this display.

These two on the other hand are demonstrating the forward posture - at least as far as I can see!

Here is a link to a video that includes several sequences of "forward postures" on water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyF2gT9nw3o

And these two may be head flagging. I wondered if their feet were moving.

Motney Hill

Teal out with the Shelduck at first, then half a dozen Wigeon.

Black-headed Gulls yielded no Med Gulls despite searching. Many of them with apparently dark bills and darkening heads.

A couple of Redshanks. A Pipit.

Moorhen and a pair of Mallard.

Woodpigeon. Wrens. 

Barden Lake at Haysden slowly drying out again as the floods recede slightly.

The water level in Barden Lake has slowly and gently dropped, and you can now walk all the way around, muddy though it is.  On the Fishing Lake by the cafe block, there were some a couple of nice Tufted Ducks, Aythya fuligula, 2 males. This bird does not have an obvious crest, but I think must still be older than a first winter juvenile, as there is no barring on the flanks. The water droplets still clinging to the feathers may indicate that the bird has recently surfaced and the crest may then be slicked down in consequence.

Other interesting ID features are the interestingly shaped head with the high forehead on a relatively narrow neck. The bill has a good solid black tip or nail (across the cross-section of the bill, looking as though it "has been dipped in ink"). There is more than a hint of a whitish stripe across the front of the bill, contrasting with the blue-grey on the rear part of the bill.  The bird is said to sit low in the water but with its tail above the surface, and I think I would agree with this from this picture to some extent - it looks as though its sitting a bit lower in the water at the moment, per haps after a dive. Deep yellow eye, perhaps slightly out of focus.  The contrast between the dark wing and the white sides is nice and distinct, a beautiful bird indeed, moving well across the water!.

On the main Gravel Pit, Barden Lake, other individuals were keeping themselves out of trouble. This one looks very much at rest, but with its eyes open! I think that the wings are most easily seen from this angle, with the two sets of primary feathers forming a valley down the back between the two wings. It also looks to me as though the flank feathers somewhat overlie the sides of the wings, giving that fringed effect to the rear of the white sides. The tail sits slightly cocked in this picture.

According to the BTO, "the rapid expansion of the Tufted Duck in Britain during the late 19th/early 20th century is probably due to the colonisation of Britain by Zebra Mussels (brought into London docks in the 1820s)".  The birds are omnivorous, feeding mainly on mussels, insects and plant material taken from the muddy bottoms of the water bodies they are on, diving anywhere between 4 - 15 metres down. It breeds better if there aren't excessive numbers of fish. 

The females show the same amount of darkening at the top of the biill, with a little light band just behind. Some of them show a scaup-like white patch at the base of the bill, although not quite so extensive, and I rather think quite a lot of them show some degree of lighter brown in that area, like the one in the duck below.

Lightning visit to Muswell Manor Beach and the Brent Geese

On the way I thought I picked out a Mediterranean Gull from a dispersed group of Black-headed Gulls on the fields on the Leysdown Road before the planted wood. I stopped to have a peek at the Raptor Mound, and there was a probable female Marsh Harrier over the reed-bad of the Capel Fleet.

On the beach there were numerous Black-headed and Herring Gulls, together with a few Greater Black-backed Gulls. There were also Oystercatchers, Redshank, a couple of Godwits, and a Curlew.

But the birds I had really come to see, the Dark-bellied Brent Geese, Branta bernicla bernicla, from the Russian North Artic were also there, in small groups of half a dozen or more. They are said to breed mainly on the Taymyr Peninsula in the far, far North. They winter in the South East of England (50% of the World population), and France and Holland, and in the spring they gather in the WaddenSee and then migrate further North and East via stopping off sites particularly such as the White Sea and the Kanin peninsula, heading for the Taymyr peninsula, travelling thousands of miles altogether.

The white neck flashes on the necks, and the dark bellies, only a bit less dark than their uppersides, were clear, and the white rears showed well. All of the ones that I saw looked like adults. The number of young, I seem to remember, may perhaps be partly dependent on the number of lemmings, and the resulting predation choices by Artic Foxes. They are certainly quite inconsistent breeders year on year.

The population dropped drastically in the 30s through to the 50s, recovered into the 70s, and stabilised in the 90s, at about a quarter of a million birds.

The Brent Goose population is generally protected in Western Europe under the EU Birds Directive 79/409 and under various national legislation. Hunting is not currently permitted, except in some local regions. As a result of the recovery and further increase of population size, however, proposals have been made in some countries for a regulated harvest of Brent Geese.

The Brent Goose is a success story in modern conservation; as a result of protection on the wintering grounds, together with other factors such as feeding on agricultural land and the recovery of eelgrass beds, they recovered from a very low population level in the 1950s.

Saturday gulls at Barden

Lots of black-headed gulls on the lake today - is it because its Saturday? Several more now wearing their brown hoods. Two Common Gulls as well. Usual Mallard (the rufus-sided one included), several mating season flights going on, Tufted Duck, and the two Farmyard Ducks with a cormorant flying overhead twice (or two birds?) and a pair of Great Crested Grebe showing very well indeed.

Canada Geese (looking as though things are moving along) and I was glad to see the Greylag hybrid back again. One Mute Swan. Coot, including the regular mottled bird, and several pairs of Moorhen.

Robins and Great Tits singing. Chaffinches, Blackbirds and Blue Tits around.

Barden Lake

Greylag Goose, Anser anser, Only a few were on the lake today, but I think the main flock may still have been nearby. At one point I heard them on the neighbouring fishing lake.

This cob mute swan has a rather strange looking tip to its beak, and I think it must have suffered a rather traumatic wound to the lower bill and tip: 

A very unusually coloured coot has been around for a couple of days, flocking with all the other waterfowl, including many "normal" coots, near the feeding area.

Just one of the two Egyptian Geese were seen today, which unfortunately I think we disturbed so that it flew off over the lake. It appears to have been eating the grass around the lake.

A drake tufted duck looks seriously at me!

This looks like an adult Black Headed Gull, Chroicocephalus ridibundus, just starting to replace its winter plumage with its brown headcap. As it darkens it tends to look sooty black rather than the brown of the fully developed cap - as do the winter head stripes. I have never seen any explanation of this. The bill is also already darkening up, showing less of a distinction between a redder base and a darker tip. By the time of the breeding season, the bill is often sufficiently dark overall to be almost concolorous with the headcap. This picture shows the very clear "white eyelid" effect

This next must be an immature Black Headed Gull, first winter perhaps. The most obvious feature are the dark-centred tertials, very clear in this individual. Tertials are apparently not true flight feathers but are located on the upper arm, near the body, and are used primarily to cover the primaries and secondaries while at rest. The so called tertial step is an important ID feature in some gull species while at rest - see this blog reference. Note also the orange base to the bill, characteristic it seems to me of overwintering first years and juveniles in general. It is a bit puzzling as there is little in the way of brown along the side of the wing - its all mainly at the back of the wing - but there is so much of it that I think it must still be a first winter. You can also see the dark tip to the tail, if only just, from this angle.

I think this is a different bird, from the other side of the lake taken much earlier, and a slightly worse photograph. However it's a very similar pattern of brown on the wing:

This is a rather more conventionally coloured wing, on a bird on a signpost stuck in the middle of the lake by the main (Western) feeding area, Again note the orangey rather than reddish bill (and legs?) of these young birds:

And another one from the Western side, again with some browning along the wing, although perhaps not quite so much as the previous picture. The small dark smudge to the front of the eye visible in most wintering birds is fairly obvious in this picture:

And here is the one Common Gull, Larus canus I saw, just before I was distracted by a "hooded" Black Headed Gull, and so I only confirmed it for sure when I looked at the photos later.

This is a drake Mallard, Anas platyrhynchos. The Mallard were in small groups across the lake today, but some at least appear to be pairing up.

There were a couple of cormorants, Phalocrocorax carbo, on the lake, diving for quite long periods and distances, so presumably fishing. One took off from the water and flew low across in front of one of the two islands, and the blurry photographs showed the white thigh patch of an adult in the breeding season.